Solarstuck
by covertCalligrapher
Summary: An AU where the Condesce feared decentralizing the main seat of her empire, and thus adults were never banished to space. Dealing with all of the issues this alternate future would offer, we follow the 12 trolls through their lives. Contains gratuitous language, blood, and one account of rebellion.
1. Eight Legs Through the Wall: Prologue

**Eight Legs Through the Wall: Prologue**

A series of murders currently occurring are the least of the worries of the law enforcers of the Imperial City. The serial murders are about to become the main worries of the tall woman walking through the streets as the sun rises. She's probably coming from a lover's hive, her life really just beginning to take off.

When she rounds the corner, she doesn't know she's being followed. She's a young red-blooded woman, horns straight and vertical, barely old enough to have an Ascension Name. The dark safety of the night is creeping away to the large hours of the morning, and the rust-blood doesn't know how tragically mundane her story will be by tomorrow night.

She doesn't notice as the shadows move to follow her. She doesn't notice as they seem to melt along the walls as they round the street to her hive. She doesn't notice as the oily shadows slide in behind her open door. She doesn't notice as they make their way to her bedroom of their own accord. She doesn't notice them as she takes off her clothes and slides into her recuperacoon.

She notices when he drags her out, cold hands reaching into the slime. She feels it when he wraps his hands around her throat, searing her with the foreign touch. She sees the insane glint in their eyes and the curvature of his horns. The hard, cold hands burning against her skin, the cold knife pressing against the her stomach.

The knife buries itself in her abdomen, making a home in her convulsing body. She watches it as her carves her front, shock receding to terror. Her screams are silent and quick, smothered and gathered with his hands for his own personal use. Smiling, he drags the knife along the corners of her mouth, her silent screams seeping through and gaining sonority. Watery red tears slide down her face as she gives an expanding smile, her screams reach such a pitch to no longer be heard but felt, shaking his bones in his favorite way.

He holds her gently in her last moments, shooshing the dwindling whimpers and whines still leaking from her broken mouth. Her blood leaks out, covering everything in red, red, red . Her body was his canvas and she was his masterpiece, free to dress her in his favourite colour.

He sets to work.

He smiles at her body, content with his work. Her long hair no longer attached at the root has been cut away and placed around her head, framing her lovely, awful smile. The halo of her hair makes her more beautiful now than when she was still breathing, still screaming. He loves everything about lowbloods, from their warm, soft, bodies, to their lovely colour, to their large horns, so prominent and perfect.

He loves how breakable they are.

He loves how beautifully they wear death.

**Okay, this is an AU and I'm assuming you read the info thing and know the gist of it. Continue to the next chapter, it'll have an archive of our own slot by the 20th of october, 2012 and its tumblr url is solarstuck. It also has pictures on ao3.**


	2. Eight Legs Through the Wall: Chapter 1

**Eight Legs Through the Wall: Chapter 1**

Your name is Vriska Serket and you are royally fucked.

Not as in you are about to be pailed by the Risen Heiress herself, more like you broke into the right house on the wrong night. A purple hive cluster, surely to be rich with items and information to pilfer.

Sadly, it was also rich in purple trolls too.

You listen to the inhabitant of the hive shuffle their stuff around in the room you are currently in. They move some papers over as if looking for something and you hold your breath inside their closet. You look at them with wide eyes and you want to puke, you're going to get caught and get psychically lobotomized or something equally as freaky and painful and-

Wait a moment, you don't remember seeing this girl when you staked out the neighborhood. You peer more closely through the slats in the door at her. She's wearing a green collared shirt and gray pants with bright blue sneakers. You don't think she lives here.

You reach your mind out to her and can't find it. Alright. So she's not a lowblood. Okay. Things are starting to come together now.

Sort of.

She turns to the closet and starts toward it. Shit shit shit fuck shit. You ready your flesh hand into a fist you're going to connect to her face.

She looks at the closet.

She opens the closet.

You scream. You tell yourself it's only to disorient her, but deep down you know it's because of the adrenaline and maybe a little bit of fear in your blood.

You punch her in the face and push her down as you try and escape the house. You hear her snarl as you flee and don't turn back. You climb up and over the bed and onto the windowsill you had entered through about ten minutes prior.

You hoist yourself over the edge and are about the jump with you are grabbed roughly from behind and launched out the window.

The fall would have killed you had you not broken the fall with your mechanical arm. And your face.

You black out and come to a few seconds later to a girl with olive green dripping from her face.

"What the fuuuuck," you moan as she shakes you. You try to lift your arms to bat her away from worsening the concussion you are sure to have. You can't, however, because you're right arm is pinned under her and your left one shattered when you flailed in on the descent.

"You didn't see me here!" she whisper-shouts at you. "I don't want to kill you, but I will!"

"Stop! Shaking! Me!" you yell at her. Shit, you can almost feel your brain swelling.

"Promise I wasn't here!"

"Uncle!" you cry out. "You weren't here! I'm just seeing things!"

She seems satisfied with your admittance to her non- existence and lets go of you. She leans back, still sitting on you and has a small smile on her small face.

Shit, everything about this girl is small.

Well, mostly everything. You feel as though someone took an eggbeater and ran it around the inside of your skull.

You think it's high-time she left the premises of your body. "Would you kindly get the fuck off of me."

She looks down at you as if startled by you being there. Great, she's insane, probably slated for the cull and broke into that house to get some shit to sell.

"Hey, you're not purple!" she exclaims, wiping some blood from your face with a finger. She licks her finger. Alright, batshit insane.

"Really? I had no idea!" you mumble, pressing your head into the grainy ground under you. Your eyeballs ache and you want to vomit.

"Oh," she says. She glances to your left and sees your arm. Or, lack thereof. "You didn't live there, did you?"

"Would I try to escape a hive I lived in?"

"I don't know you, maybe you're just quirky!"

"I'm quirky and if you don't want vomit all over you, I suggest getting off me," you say. The churning in your stomach and the acid in your throat threaten to rise to the surface.

She springs off of you and you throw yourself over. You lift yourself up with your one shaky arm and heave the contents of your stomach onto the sand. Your eyes are watering and your head throbs with each lurch and you think your stomach is going to turn inside out and fall out of your mouth.

After a few dry heaves, your stomach lets to rest. It takes all of your willpower to not just fall in your own sick and you lurch yourself over to lay on your face _next _to your sick.

"Are you okay?" She sounds worried and you hear soft thumping noises as she comes over to you.

You don't even have the brain function to be snide. "I want to die," you groan into the sand. There's sand in your mouth now.

"Oh shit, you were stealing from the hive too!" she whisper-shouts again, getting really close to your face.

You crack open your eye and a nail is driven into the back of your skull. You make a show of rolling it at her.

The world spins and you're thrown upside down. You close your eye.

You're tired, really tired. You feel like sleep is a wonderful idea right now, recuperacoon or none.

You sigh.

"Wait, don't go to sleep!" She sounds as though she were speaking from under the water. You fee; someone grab your arm and hoist you up. You can't open your eyes and you don't want to. They feel as though they were glued shut

She runs with you, or at least you think she's running. At one point after an indeterminate amount of time, she stops and you can hear her wheezing. She slaps you a few times and you drift back to consciousness, albeit only slightly.

She lifts you and moves some more. You just want to sleep. That's all you want, but her rocking you is keeping you awake. The way she jostles you makes your head throb even harder than it was the previous jostle.

She eventually stops and you can here a door opening and another troll talking. You think it's a man, they have a low voice. Unless it's a very manly woman.

Your body changes hands.

You are stuck with a needle. Something cold and stinging is applied to your face. The dried blood from your nose and mouth is cleaned off. Your veins feel cold and you can't feel anything but your head, and your feet and hand are prickling.

They go through a lot of trouble to keep you awake and you really wish they wouldn't. You gradually come back to yourself. After a few minutes of a hazy large troll with a startling blue blush shining a light into your burning eyes, you are lifted and dumped into a large blue recuperacoon. The slime is warm and envelopes you completely, making you fall asleep almost instantly.

8 8 8

You wake up and feel like shit. Your skull feels cracked and your eye has shards of glass in it, you are sure of it. You struggle in the sopor for a few moments, trying to get a feel for your limbs. You wiggle your toes and determine them to be functional and organic. You make a fist with your right hand and try in vain with your left. All you get for your trouble is the painful feeling of your tendons overextending themselves.

You try to sit up and immediately regret it. Your head spins and your eye throbs. You probably would have puked too had the contents of your stomach not gotten the fuck out-

Wait, when was it?

You look around you and see the small girl perched on a chair. Shit, this girl tried to kill you and she's just sitting there with a book in her hand.

You make a move to vacate the viscous gel and she seems to hear the sucking noise it makes. Her head perks up to look at you and she doesn't smile.

"Okay, fairs fair. You punched me, I punched you. And I brought you back here to make sure you were alright. And we fixed your arm for you." She hopps off the chair and grabs a towel from an enormous rack entirely filled with them. They must take bathing very seriously here.

"You almost killed me!" you exclaim, hoisting yourself from the recuperacoon.

She throws the towel and it drapes itself over your horns. "I have a shirt that might fit you and a skirt over there," she says, gesturing to what seems to be a workbench. "There's a shower beyond the corner door if you want to shower, but scrape the sopor off first." She starts to leave the room but turns halfway out the door. "Come out when your ready, we want to talk to you." She leaves the room.

You wait for the door to close at least before you look for a way out. You scrape off the sopor and look for a window. There are none to be found.

You look at the port for your arm, yet the pieces that should be hanging off of it are nowhere to be seen. The girl said that someone had fixed your arm. Huh.

Who are these people? Are they like those backwater trolls who abduct people of higher castes and keep them hostage? Thievery of anyone higher than a teal blood is usually a profession only dabbled in by those of equal or higher status.

And this girl had fucking olive.

After a few minutes of silently determining it would take many explosives to escape or break into this hive or cave or whatever, you decide a shower would be awesome. You pause at the small table the small girl gestured to before. You guess you could just rip the sigil off the clothes and take them with you when you run like hell. Usually works when you get into messes like this.

Your clothes are a bloody mess and your left glove is probably on the beach where you'd gotten mauled. You peel your boots off and rinse the slime off them. You set them to the side before you get into the shower to rinse yourself off.

You take what is probably one of the coldest showers of your life. Holy shit, you think they just decided to put ice into their water tanks.

The same shower is also one of the quickest of your life. It feels good on your skull, though.

You leave the shower and take a towel off of the second rack you've seen, and it too is filled with just fucking towels. It's a little weird. They are very nice towels, however and you dry your hair almost completely before you leave.

You put on the clothes. The shirt is humongous and you could probably just wear it as a shorter dress. It has no sign on it and looks distinctly faded and patched together. The skirt is a tight fit but you pull it up high on your body and manage to make it work, because you're a fucking woman of action. You don't take 'no' for answer. In fact, 'no' lost meaning right along with 'please' and 'don't kill me.'

You leave the ablution trap and slink into the bedroom. After determining for a second time there was no viable escape other than what you presume was a front door you straighten your shoulders and waltz out of the room.

The room you enter is wide and filled with junk. It's completely filled with pieces of metal and twisted scraps of trash. It has a recuperacoon in the corner and many pelts from Alternia's frightening fauna. It's a room that just has absolutely no order to it.

The two trolls in it seem to be in a similar state. The massive troll with a black muscle shirt and a broken horn is bent over a bench. The bench is covered in even more garbage and useless metals. The girl who killed you and then saved you is sitting in the corner, perched on a different chair and reading a book. You don't know whether it's the same one, and you don't care, your eye has just focused on the huge blast proof door.

The door barring you from exiting this fucking weird experience

The door keeping you _in_ this fucking weird experience.

You might as well get their attention. "Alright, where the fuck am I."

They both look over at you. The girl opens her mouth to speak, but the boy talks first. "Language such as that is not befitting for someone of your status."

You spot a chair and swagger over to it. Who fuck does he think he is. "Who the fuck do you think you are?" you snarl.

He blushes a deep, bright blue. Ah, a blue blood! Great, his looks darker than yours. This can only get worse, but you'll be fine. You're charming, and your charm has always gotten you out of tight spaces.

Surprisingly, instead of telling you shut your fucking lowblooded face, he turns away and goes back to what he was doing. "I am no one."

The girl in corner saunters over to him and hugs him from behind, pressing her face into his spine. Such a touching love fest. You want to vomit.

Your wish to expel the contents of your stomach only makes you realize further that you currently have none.

Your empty stomach throws such a magnificent roar as if trying to convey to you "Feed me! If you do not, you will literally _die_!"

"So," you say, "do you people have any food in here?" You kick over a box and prop your feet up on it.

The girl turns and scowls at you. "Don't do that, it's not yours!" She doesn't let go of the sweaty troll.

You smirk and wave your arm in the air. "What-_eveeeeeeeer_, you said you had my arm? It'd like it back, I was quite attached to it."

The tall troll does not turn to you. However, the small green girl lets go of him and crosses her arms over her chest. "Don't you want to know who we are?"

The blue troll says quietly, "I do not think exchanging names would be wise."

The girl gives a small smile to the floor. "I think it would be a purrrfect idea."

"I'm with your sweaty friend over there. People in our line of business rarely deal in names, huh?" You wink at her and smile. At least, it was supposed t be a wink. You only have one eye, in case that wasn't already abundantly obvious.

She moves in front of the large troll and grabs something off of the table. "What-no-don't!" he exclaims, but shes already taken it and is waving it in front of you.

"Who are you?" she purrs at you, yanking the arm out of your grasp.

"What! Now that's not fair!" you yell, getting angry. That's your arm! Your _fucking_ arm! You need it!

She frowns at you. "A lot of things aren't fair."

You lean back and grimace. You suppose it's true, though you don't want to admit it. Then again, it's just your name, you don't even have to tell them your real one.

Though you kind of feel like at least telling the truth to these people.

"Alright, I'm Vriska. Vriska Serket, please to meet you, now give me my arm and I'll be on my way." Your stomach roared again. "And any food you could give me would be awesome."

The corners of the girl's mouth curled upward slightly. "Serket? Like the Vriska they're hunting on TV?" She doesn't give you your arm. Instead, she hands back to other troll.

You anticipated this. You pull up one corner of your mouth into an teeth-flashing smile. "You thinking of turning me in?" You've been in worse spots than this, and really, if he gave you your arm back it would not be hard to just kill them before they could tell anyone. By the looks of their hive, no one would miss them. He doesn't even have a sign on his shirt.

She frowns and shakes her head. "You were robbing that hive too. We're both wanted, so there'd be no point in attracting unwanted attention to myself." She turns to look at the blue troll.

That's right. She's probably wanted. Maybe you won't have to kill them.

"Vriska, can we trust you?" she asked, and she just seemed so tired all of a sudden.

You decide to be frank with her. "No."

She grimaces and you feel _bad_. You feel like you just kicked a meowbeast and you feel _bad_ about it.

You decide you could use a few more friends. After all, someone in your line of business always needs more friends. "Let me rephrase that: I could always use a new friend. And since you didn't kill me in my sleep, I guess I should count you among them." You smile and you hope it doesn't look like you're baring your teeth.

She smiles and you get the feeling she doesn't have many friends. "I'm Nepeta Lejion, purrrloiner extraordinaire!" She does a sweeping bow for you. Shit, she loves her cat puns. You have a feeling you've heard the name before. Maybe from one of the neighborhoods you've robbed.

"Alright kitty, and who's your friend over there?" you ask, jerking your chin towards the large troll. He flinches and you're almost positive his eyes are cringing underneath his broken glasses.

She seems to enjoy you calling her kitten given the light green blush spreading across her face, though she hesitates before answering your question.

"This is... Equius. He made your new arm." She gestures to him to put your arm on.

He approaches you and kneels by your left. He attaches the arm to the port left on your shoulder and you feel the appendage snap to life. It feels... strong. You make a fist and it has better feeling than any shoddy thing you could have made. Your old arm feels like it was made out of sticks and paper compared to this thing.

"Shit, this is fantastic. I'm almost glad you got me into this," you say, grinning at Nepeta. She smiles back and the fool next to you starts sweating again.

You look at the fool. "You—shit, what was your name-" he mumbles an 'Equius' while you continue to talk "-alright, Equisuck. What's your full name. Kitty and I already said ours, it's only fair." You flex your arm again, marveling at the strength you feel in it. It feels almost like your actual one!

"I, uh, oh. I'm Equius Zahhak." He gets up and seems to try to hide his face.

You pause your reverent admiration for your synthetic appendage and look at him.

"_What._" You have seem to have entrenched yourself in some shit deeper than you thought fucking possible.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

It takes a moment for you to realize your mad grin, and you don't take it off your face. Nepeta frowns and moves defensively in front of Equius.

"He's my moirail," she states and it feels like she's threatening you with something. You pretty much think she has jack shit to be threatening you with right now. You turn your grin into a smirk.

"He's wanted," you say, leaning forward. This all suddenly makes every iota of sense to be had in the universe. She narrows her eyes and Equius still hasn't turned to face you. "Oh relax, I'm not going to turn you guys in. It serves the entire damn caste system right, what you two did," you continue to say, your head resting on your hands.

You turn to Equius. "So, Equisuck, tell me? What possessed you to do it? A noble blue such as yourself surely holds blood in the highest regard." You narrow your eyes and widen your smirk. "Surely you would think dying would be preferable to getting stripped of caste," you purr.

You can't see his eyes behind his glasses and his mouth twitches. Nepeta is looking at the floor and you hear a small sniffle from her.

You wipe the smirk off and replace it with the grin from earlier and direct your eyes to Nepeta. "So, Kitten, was it hard getting him back from the legislacerators? I'd imagine it would be, considering how many of them there are these days. Oh this is a story I just have to hear from the hoofbeast's mouth."

Nepeta looks like she's about to talk before Equius interrupts her. She looks up at him and an entire conversation is spoken in the span of a second. Your smile wavers.

Equius looks at you and his expression is cold as ice. "I do not value my own life. However"- he leans in closer to you and you can smell the sweat on him. It smells terrible- "I hold my moirail's in higher regard than anything else."

Your expression slackens and you find your mouth is gaping open. You close it and swallow.

"Equius..." Nepeta says, grabbing his arm and tugging on it. He straightens up and goes back to his table.

You cough and feel it's time you got this shit under control. "Alright, why don't we eat something so I don't die or something equally unpleasant happens?" you ask, patting your stomach with the metal appendage.

You hear Equius mutter something and decide you do not want any part of this guy's bad side. It probably smells like sweat there.

Nepeta looks at you for a moment before smiling again and scampering off to a corner of the room. You cross your legs and pull the skirt down a little. You smooth it with your hands and wonder if you can get your gloves back. And if you can go get your things from your stash, you have _money_ there.

Nepeta returns and hands you what is essentially a lump of meat. You look at it and it's coloured a dull green with some char marks from where it's been cooked. _You hope_.

You look back at her, disgust evident in our face. "What the actual fuck _is_ this," you say, holding the ball of meat aloft in your hand.

She smiles at you before taking a bite out of her own lump of meat. She chews, swallows and says, "I go out hunting and make the animals I catch into things. I made meatballs a few days ago and there are a few left." She sees the look on your face and urges you to take a bite.

Oh fuck, why not. It's not like it'll kill you or anything. Then again, it could.

It's green.

You bite it, because with an empty stomach, green is fucking _appetizing_.

It tastes wonderful, the full spectrum of flavour simply exploding on your tongue and sending shivers of pleasure down your spine. Your hand shakes and your eye widens to fully express your wonderment at the simple gob of meat now sliding down your throat. A small tear comes to your lone eye and drips down your face, leaving a crystaline trail behind. You feel a changed person and resolve to help the needy and end your thieving, murderous ways.

Or at least that's what would have happened if it wasn't complete bullshit. It did taste good to your aching insides, but it was still a lump of green meat.

You tell Nepeta this and she looks absolutely delighted. Though you hate to burst her bubble, you just have to know. "Why is it green," you inquire, keeping your face level with hers and dropping your eye to look at the mushy ball of meat.

Nepeta looks confused for a second before seeming to understand and answering, "It came from a green animal. Equius made me cook it so it looks sick, doesn't it?" She frowns and she looks truly disgruntled about the state of her dead animal.

"I can't even fathom why you want to eat another animal. It's disgusting enough by itself, why do you have to eat it when it's still dripping with blood? You don't even clean the blood when you _do_ cook it." Equius turns to frown at Nepeta, a chastising tone to his words.

Nepeta smiles, bits of meat poking out from her fangs and Equius looks entirely horrified. He turns a violent shade of blue when she swallows and smacks her lips, still grinning.

"Disgusting," he mutters before turning angrily back to his table and the sound of grinding metal filled the room.

You watch him pound the metal for a moment before Nepeta commands your attention again. Two fugitives from the legilacerators and a new arm, what has your life even become?

Nepeta allowed you to leave very late that night to retrieve your things. She assured Equius she would be back soon, and the two of you returned when the sun was just beginning to rise. When she scratched at the large metal portcullis dug into the side of a mountain, Equius cracked the door and looked around before ushering you in. He quickly shut the door behind you.

That was one week ago.

In the span of a week, Nepeta has introduced you to the quaint life she seems to be stuck in. They live together in a sheer rock face blown into the valley of a mountain. The surrounding area is a dense forest, populated by various midbloods of nepeta's particular hue.

Shit's filled with olive bloods.

You feel like the past week has been a sort of dream to you. You'd been introduced to the townsfolk, many of them giving Nepeta food or clothing or money. When you'd asked her why, she says she would get things that were stolen from them, back.

"Infact," Nepeta had said, "the night I met you, I was looking for information on missing items for a 'client.'"

You looked at her, perplexed. "Something was taken from _them_?" You gave a short laugh. "And you were going to get it _back?_ You were more likely to get killed than get anything back from a subjugglator!" The whole absurdity of the situation was hilarious to you: so tiny and naïve and then you would remember she had escaped the legislacerators with her mountain of a moirail and just holy fuck.

How even did she do that.

And you would ask her. And she would never say anything about it, only how she owed her moirail.

_And her moirail._

It's like you've been flown into the middle of a pale pornography. Their relationship is so disgustingly tender you want to throw yourself off the fucking mountain you're under. They'll snuggle and kiss and talk about their emotions with each other, during which you would need to leave the room to give them some fucking privacy.

And Equius get's angry so easily, you never quite got why. Why get mad when you could just get even? If they just told you one of the 80 fucking times you'd asked, everything would go much more smoothly for everyone. Especially you.

And yet, there's something about their life that is fascinating to you. It's so pale and so loving, you're a bit envious, once you get past the initial puke reflex. Sure, you'd been flung into pale relationships before; it's practically required for someone of your status. Holding functions where blues and up were given partners green and down were common, highbloods needing the stability of a mentally sound troll. Just trolls not of your colour, when brought to hive, where often eaten by your lusus, and when they weren't, they broke so irreparably, you kept them away or they left.

But that's the past, she's dead, and this is now. And you have an entire deck of cards and answers up your sleeve.

"Alright," you proclaim to the large room.

They look at you, Nepeta perched in Equius shoulders. Equius himself is fiddling with more of his stupid robots.

"Alright?" Nepeta and Equius ask at the same time, Nepeta sounding inquisitive and Equius just sounding exasperated. The two of you have formed a sort of vitriolic friendship of sorts. He'd make a fine enemy if he weren't so pity stricken for himself.

"I," you declare, "am sick of this shit." You sit down in a chair in the large block and cross your arms and legs.

"Then leave," Equius mumbles, turning away from you.

"Equius!" Nepeta scolds him, papping his head.

You roll your eyes. "Laaaaaaaame." You wait a moment before clearing your throat loudly,

Once Equius gives you his attention, you begin your proposition. "I want to play a game."

"I do not want to guess how many irons you have in the fire," Equius deadpans, crossing his arms over his chest. Nepeta sighs atop his head, clearly choosing her battles between her moirail and you.

"Well that's never really a fun game. Spoiler: I always have all the irons in the fire, as well as all of the fingers in aaaaaaaall of the pies, to answer your obvious followup question." You uncross and recross your legs, draping your arms over the back of the chair as you do so. "I propose we play a card game. If you win, I'll tell you whatever you want, maybe even go along with some of Nepeta's little "schemes."" You end the sentence with a vicious grin, your blue painted lips curling away from your teeth.

Nepeta chirps, "I don't know any card games." She straightens her position atop Equius's shoulders. Her eyes narrow slightly and you can see her slitted pupils tighten. "What if you win?"

"Well, Kitten, I wouldn't want to take advantage of you, if I win you have to answer my questions." Your words glide off your tongue smoothly. "I mean, it's been a week I've been playing hive with you two and I think we should get some things straight before this goes... any further."

You don't miss the sudden increase in the moisture rolling of Equius and Nepeta's quick licking of her lips.

"I don't really know," Nepeta starts, stopping to sigh and look at Equius's broken horn. Another question for your growing lsit.

Equius begins to talk. "I feel like you're trying to pull one over on us." His arms cross over his chest and bares his broken teeth at you.

Oh this is so much fun for you! They know you're trying to manipulate them, and yet they have no idea what's going to come next.

"Weeeeeeeell," you drawl, "one of you would have to play. I suggest Nepeta, Equisuck's sweating might give him away."

You look at Nepeta and wink at her as best as you can while only possessing one eye.

Equius says no and Nepeta says yes. Equius asks her why the dickens she would ever agree to it, and Nepeta says she does what she wants because she's a cat. And you can't tell cats what to do.

"Alright," you say, clapping your flesh and metal hands together. "I'll go and get my deck."

You seat Nepeta across the table from you and lock Equius in a the ablution chamber, leaving him with the bulk of their towel supply. You produce the thick deck of cards and separate them into 16 piles according to the class.

"The Lord and the Muse are both at the top of the list and are generally worth 16 points. Next comes the Queen worth 12 and the Prince worth 11. The Bard is worth 10, the Heir is worth 9, the Theif is worth 8, the Seer is worth 7, the Sylph is worth 6, the Rogue is worth 5, the Knight is worth 4, the Mage is worth 3, the Page is worth 2 and the Maid is worth 2." You lay all the cards in front of her in cascading order from greatest to least. You use the Heart suit for your demonstration.

"There are six suits and two aspects. Three of the suits are categorized into the pity aspect and the other three are in the hate aspect. Hearts, diamonds, and bells are in pity, and spades, clubs, and swords are in hate. Hearts are red, diamonds are pink, bells are dull green, spades are black, clubs are grey, and swords are dark purple." You pick up the Queen for each suit and show Nepeta.

She looks at them and says, "I've seen cards before, I've just never played them." Her voice implies her offense, yet she picks up a card off of each of the two stacks you put to the side. "What are these, though?"

You take them from her and place them at the end of the line you've assembled. You point to one and say, "This is the Doc card, the wild card of hate. The other is the Witch, the wild card of pity. There aren't a lot of games that use them, but the ones that do use them as trump cards. If we were playing Pity, then whoever got the designated suit of Witch first would win, while the person to get the opposite Doc suit would lose automatically."

You grin at her. "It's funny you should ask, really. We're going to play "Pity.""

She looks at you dully, her lips pursed. She doesn't seem regretful of agreeing to play with you, just tired of your shit. Frankly, you can't blame her; you have a lot shit and it get's dragging after a while.

"Something tells me that playing the game is just going to be a waste of time," Nepeta states, rearranging herself in her chair. "And here I thought it was going to be fun."

"Kitten, I'm always fun," you state absently as you gather the cards into the deck and shuffle.

"Alright, basically the game itself is called quadrants, and it's pretty simple. It has two variations: pity and hate." You pause here and look up at Nepeta, her wide face, her small eyes with the large, slitted irises. You smirk at her, trying to make the look seem as friendly as you intended it. "The quadrants have been around for as long as trolls have. I think putting the shapes we've always used to denote them into a game made it easier for wigglers of old to understand," you drawl at her, just talking until you feel the deck is sufficiently shuffled.

"Now they just confuse stupid trolls incapable of understanding a common pastime," you mumble as you cut the deck. You give Nepeta and yourself six cards to start with.

Nepeta picks up the cards and just looks at them before sighing and pulling a smile onto her face. She dripped optimism from every pore on her flat face. "I think I remember this, one of the jungle trolls showed me when Equius and I blew the hole in the mountain."

"Blowing a hole in their mountain must have been appreciated," you comment as you put the two remaining halves of the deck a foot apart from each other.

"Alright, you and I both have six cards. We are playing _Pity_, and so if either us gets the Witch of Bells, Hearts, or Diamonds, it's an automatic win." You smile again. "But, if either of us gets the Doc of Swords, Spades, or Clubs, that's an automatic lose. We can designate a suit that's the automatic trump, though, if you want to."

Nepeta nods her head to confirm that she has processed and understood this piece of knowledge. "I choose Hearts!"

"Hearts it is, and that would make Spades the trump of Hate." You move the cards in your hands around absently. You describe the rules to Nepeta, how simple the game is. Collect points, don't lose any, be careful of the wildcards.

Nepeta looks at her cards apprehensively then up at you. She asks you to explain them again, just so she understands.

You explain the rules to her three more times.

She says she is ready to play.

The game commences.

You look at your cards and you have a horrible hand. Maids of Hearts and Clubs look up at you. Next to them is a Theif of Hearts and a Rogue of Diamonds leering at you. A Lord and Queen of Swords plot domination together. You hope Nepeta doesn't have luck on her side, but you're not too keen on hoping. You don't need hope.

Your name is Vriska Serket and you have luck.

Your phenomenal luck could be attributed to your keen ability to enslave the minds of those with warm blood. It could be attributed to Luck's possible fear of you, though even you admit that is a bit too over the top. It could be attributed to your blue pusher or your blue pan or your blue _anything._

But you know this is all just speculation of the ones you've left dazed or dead behind you. You know that's a load of bullshit. You know this for a fact, because you are indeed Vriska Serket.

And Vriska Serket cheats. You steal others luck by making your own.

And you're cheating now, making your own luck at the expense of Nepeta's. You wait for a few turns to pass, picking up and exchanging cards before you make your move.

You honestly can't believe Nepeta trusted you enough to think you wouldn't cheat. She shouldn't have let you wear sleeves.

But then again, you can't blame her. You met her a week ago.

You make a reach for a card from the deck to your right and pull the Witch of Hearts you have stashed in your sleeve and make like you're pulling it off the deck. You glace at Nepeta as you're doing it. Shit, she doesn't even notice. It's no fun cheating if there's no danger involved.

But you'll cheat anyway because it's practically an addiction. And an addiction is no laughing matter.

You win and you want to know so many things, and Nepeta looks put-out but willing.

"Alright, I guess you should ask me something," Nepeta says to you, putting her cards down on the table. "You won, and I guess you should know some things if you're going to stay with us."

You smile and remember that Equius is still locked in the ablution chamber. He can stay there for a little bit, he has towels, he'll be fine. "Okay Kitten, let's try an easy one."

You put your own hand down and cross your legs. You gesture with your chin to the room around the both of you. "How'd you two get here?"

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	3. Eight Legs Through the Wall: Chapter 2

**Eight Legs Through the Wall: Chapter 2**

Nepeta considers the cards before herself and moves one around a bit before answering the table. "We came here about 2 sweeps ago, Equius and I found the cave and made it bigger so we could put more rooms in." Nepeta looks up at you and ceases to shuffle the card around.

"Well 2 sweeps ago was a long time, but what about before then?" You frown and shake your head. "You know what I'm talking about, your story is so insane, people are still squawking about it. Your pictures are still run on news networks and are still posted in the legislacerators' offices," you say, waving your hand around airily.

Nepeta purses her lips at you. Her face slackens and she takes a mouthful of air before continuing. "I first started stealing things when I was 7 and a half sweeps, and Equius didn't approve. He said thievery was for someone lower on the spectrum, and not to get mixed up in it, it wouldn't end well. I just loved sneaking into people's hives, cat-like and melting along the walls, no one ever noticed me."

You nod to her, feeling the same rush when you break, enter, and evade.

"Except one day, it was a little while after my eighth wriggling day, I was caught breaking into a bronze hive. It usually isn't such a big deal getting caught in a slum, but there was a legislacerator. She was a red blood and eager to prove herself so she could ascend early or maybe stop getting slum jobs." Nepeta gives a watery smile and you blink at her. She continues. "She handled my case and I couldn't take it, I freaked out at ran away when she caught me. I ran to Equius' hive and I told him what happened and he told to me to turn myself it, cooperating was the only way I'd be alright."

"You wouldn't be alright," you say, your mouth quirking to the side. "Serial theft is punished by death."

She nods her head at you. "I told him that, and he reasoned that it was theft from a lowblood, it wouldn't put me to death. I was a repeat offender and a 'lacerator with a grudge saw that I would be culled. I told Equius to come with me, he said him running away would only make myself look worse."

Nepeta's voice becomes urgent as if trying to convey something of the utmost importance to you. "He didn't want me to die for my crimes, far from it! He just... he just takes the hemospectrum so seriously, but he didn't want me to get hurt. So rather than defy it outright, he took no part in my escape. He also didn't think it was proper for me to die, and for someone at the bottom of the spectrum to preside over it.

"I ran away and hid around the coast of the Imperial City for a few days, watching the news reports on what was happening. My hive w-was ordered to be searched and my l-lusus was killed." Nepeta's voice has a discernible tremor as she tells you this part and you feel a surge of pity in your chest. You proceed to crush it immediately and never think of it again.

You want to know what happens, even though you've seen all the reports on it, admired to the trolls responsible for it. It was so wonderful, seeing the justice system taking it up the chute. Yet, now that you've met the two trolls, you feel... underwhelmed. They don't match up to the fantasy you had concocted of them in your head.

You frown and Nepeta is still speaking. "Her name was Pounce and she was the most purrrfect kitty ever. I kept watching the news and Equius was apparently taken into custody as an accomplice in my escape. I-I don't really want to talk about what they did to him, but I had to get him back."

Nepeta's face is scrunched and dark, her words sharp and pointed, liable to draw blood if they hit you hard enough. "He's my moirail and I don't think I would want to live without him. So I went to the legislacerator's holding building and get him out. I staked out the building for two days, testing for the weakest points and finding his holding cell. Getting inside was simpler than I thought it would be, but getting him out was very difficult."

You roll your eye and blow a lock of hair from your face. "That sounds like complete bullshit. How was getting out harder than getting in? He could just punch a hole out threw the wall or something!"

Nepeta sighs and places her head in her hands. "He doesn't like to hurt anything, that's how he lost his horn. When we were younger, about 5 or 6, he would build robots to beat up. He stopped doing it so much after he lost a horn to it."

"Ouch, so they're not just like that?" you ask. Then you reconsider. "Ah, it would explain his piss balance and trouble hearing."

Nepeta nods, her head still cradled in her palms. "He didn't want to leave. He didn't want to disrespect his place. I don't know if he knew they would have killed him, but I said they would. And after they did, I-they wouldn't need to come find me. I'd take care of that part of their job for them."

She stops speaking and you consider the small, straight-bodied girl in front of you. Her face is round and her nose turns up, the olive flush reflecting in the olive highlights of her hair. She's so small, yet you know she's capable of wrecking you completely. She knows she's capable of wrecking you completely, but she doesn't. She doesn't want to, she doesn't like to, she loves her moirail.

The moirail who's so large and completely capable of wrecking you. He knows he can wreck you until there's nothing left, but he doesn't. You'd figured up until this point that he didn't have the soul to hurt you, but you were wrong.

He doesn't want to, he doesn't like to, he loves his moirail.

You realize the room has gone silent and you fix to remedy that. You clear your throat, your voice coming out softer than you intended it to, "How did the two of you get out?"

"I had to drag him through the air vents I used to get it. He didn't want to come with me, but he wanted to keep me safe. So he complied and left. He was stripped of his caste and his sign earned another exile."

You snigger, remembering what happened to the legislacerator who fucked their case up so bad. "Must have felt great to see that legislacerator get what was coming to her!"

Nepeta looks at you and she seems... disappointed, out of all things. "Why should I feel good about pain others have endured because of myself." She seems to be getting angrier as she speaks. "She has at _most_ 30 sweeps to live, and she lost two of them because she has to undergo training all over again. She's the same age as us, but she won't be able to use all of her time. Plus!" Nepeta shouts, thoroughly worked up now, "Equius and I have our own personal harpy to follow us around and kill us with their grudge!"

"Join the club-"

"You are not turning this into a pity party, Vriska!" Nepeta shouts, her hands slamming down onto the table as she stands, the chair moving backwards to accommodate her sudden shift of mass.

You stare at her, your eye wide and your lips parted slightly. Trolls were usually too afraid to shout at someone in the cooler half of the spectrum so readily, and for good reason. A lowblood shouting and angering a highblood will almost certainly slate them for the cull. A highblood 'putting a lowblood in their place' is common and usually ends in slating for the cull as well.

Nepeta's flagrant tossing and rolling of the spectrum reminds you of a the cat she so readily identifies with. Nepeta batting society around, pulling and trying it until it's a mess you need to untangle and roll back into a presentable ball.

You are cowed into a silence more stunned than intimidated, this pint-sized girl putting more pressure on you than you thought anyone could exert. She stares straight into you, breathing a little heavier than is usual for her. You turn away from her gaze, uneasy. You look out the window and see the sky shot through with streaks of pink. It must be very early, the soft orange of your burning sun beginning to cook the air.

"Well," you say weakly. You clear your throat and your voice becomes stronger. "That escalated quickly. We should probably go to sleep." You make a move to stand up and Nepeta releases the crushing grip she had on the table that neither of you had noticed, but had now become acutely aware of.

"Yes. You take the coon in here. I'll go get Equius before we end up doing laundry for a perigree and we'll stay in the blue coon. Good day, Vriska." And with that, Nepeta leaves in you the block to clean up the cards and ruminate on her outburst.

You look at the think metal portcullis that they seem to think is a proper substitute for actual doors and run your hands over your face, suddenly tired. You pull the cards into a stack and pat then into their carton. You start over to the recuperacoon but stop to look at your surroundings.

Everything is fucking metal.

The walls are made out of the shiny gray material, painted over in some places. There are various dents and holes in the wall, you assume each is from Equius' fits of anger you have yet to witness. The parts that are painted are run over with cracks where the paint couldn't adhere to the smooth surface, while others are covered with small, primitive drawings. You walk over to them, examining them for the first time since you happened to be thrust into their life.

There are many signs drawn all over the wall. Many are blue and others are olive, there are some teal, many red, and a few browns. Less numerous are the small symbols drawn between the signs. You peer closer, seeing small hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades scribbled on the wall. _Oh. _It's a shipping wall.

Your face heats slightly when you see the notes Nepeta's put beneath some of them. There's an empty spot at the top with large letters spanning the gap.

"O-T-P," you whisper as you read the three letters, unaware of their meaning. You look at the wall again and spot something about pails before you decide you do not want to see this and you look away.

You walk over to the large, sack-like recuperacoon and take off your clothes before sinking into the cool slime. It warms immediately but you feel like sleep isn't going to come easily to you, not today. You listen to the crawling sounds of the slime seeping into your aural clots and the numbing itching as they envelope your horns , trying to collect your flitting thoughts.

You really do enjoy being here, in their hive. Hell, Nepeta beating the living daylights out of you was probably one of the hottest things to ever happen to you. Nepeta subdues you in a way you never got from another troll. If your lusus were still scurrying about, eating kids, you wouldn't even be thinking this about Nepeta. She'd probably be her next meal, another dead kid to add to the growing pile of skeletons in your closet.

You roll over on top of the slime, the viscous gel not allowing you to sink further down.

You think about how your life was. Your FLARPing days are behind you, and in a way, you're glad. Sure, it was fun while it lasted, but its end marked the end of your mom and the beginning of being a free troll. Your hive was empty after she died, so you left. You enjoy stealing, taking people's valuables and absconding with them. You get a rush from it. Sometimes you like to plant the stuff in other troll's hives, just for shits and giggles.

You remember one time where you planted a stolen signet ring in the hive of the troll's neighbor. Oh that was fucking rich. Legislacerators got all up in that shit and the troll served as a desk jockey for a sweep.

You giggle a little at the fond memory and accidentally inhale a small amount of sopor instead.

While your lungs try to violently expel the gelatinous goo, you flail in the thick semi-solid. The fit passes just as quickly as it was summoned and you hope they didn't hear your desperate sputtering. You settle back into the gel and try to slow your raspy breathing.

Your mind begins to wander again. There are so many things you want to get done but you'd always needed someone else to do them with, and really, who could you ask? Tavros' 'sudden disappearance' after his accident cuts him from your list and the brat probably wouldn't have enough guts actually go through with anything. You could always find where he's staying if you get desperate for people to complete your heist of the di-saeculum, though with the introduction of these two you think you'll only be needing one more person to complete your crazy band of bitches. A lowblood, probably red. You'll see about going out tomorrow with Nepeta to find one.

Nepeta.

Damn. She might want you to leave after how pissed she seemed. You just don't get why it should be such a sensitive topic with her, her moirail is the one with more trouble and responsibility thrust on him. Not to mention he won this sweep's award for Greatest Recorded Butthurt on a Single Troll. You know his life is pretty much over and that blah blah blah everything sucks, but c'mon? It's been sweeps since that happened, he needs to get over the river he sweat out over it, it was two sweeps ago,

Two sweeps ago, it felt like so long ago. Back when you were softer but still hard. You haven't seen your left in 4 sweeps, but 2 sweeps ago you remember remembering what it looked like. A memory of a memory is a shitty thing to be left with. You miss your eye, you miss your arm, you miss Tavros.

Heh, maybe not Tavros, he's probably better off without you.

You rethink that statement.

Everyone's better off without you.

Ahh, here it comes, the slow decent into self-loathing. You fancied you could make doomsday devices, but the only world you ended was your own. You killed your lusus and lost what gave you your edge. You lost an arm, your friends, your hive, everything. You remember how lame you were and how bad you felt for bringing Tavros to hive and how bad you don't feel about bringing other trolls to hive. You know you shouldn't feel shit about Tavros but fuck, you do. You feel awful, and the fact you keep shoved in the back of your head seems to be unearthed by the massive hit you're taking from the tranquilizers you're marinating in.

You fucking suck.

888

You wake up the next evening and feel like shit. No, you're worse than shit, shit feels like you in the evening. You heave your arms around to grab the sides of the 'coon, your limbs not cooperating with you because they are stuck fast to the gel. You manage to awkwardly grope the lip on the top and wrench yourself from the goo. You scrape your hands over your eyes to dislodge the gum and sopor from your ocular slots.

You look around the room blearily and register that you have a horrible taste in your mouth. You roll your tongue around a few times and see Equius is awake but hasn't turned to face you yet. You doubt he even wants to look at you, and you honestly don't want to look at him, it's too early in the evening for this shit.

You hoist yourself up and the vacuum of the slime tries to keep you captive, but you manage to pull out in the end. Equius still doesn't turn to look at you and you should be cold, you suppose, but the ice pounding through your veins make you very insensitive to temperatures of the lower numbers. You push a little of the sopor off your body, but most of it stayed in the slime. You walk over to the table and sit down heavily in a chair, acutely aware of your lack of clothing when your ass connects with the metal chair.

You sigh and do not want to get up to retrieve your own clothing, so you grin and look at Equius.

"Equiuuuuuuuus," you drawl. "Could you get me something to put on?"

He turns to you and turns away nearly as quickly. "Vriska, put some clothing on!"

"That's what I asked you to get for me."

He sighs and hesitates between staying where he is and leaving and eventually decides he need to get a towel anyway and absconds the fuck out of there. You snicker as he practically runs out of the room, wrenching open the metal door and slamming it shut behind him.

However, once Nepeta enters the room a few moments later, a pair of pants and a shirt in her hand, your laughter stops. You don't know what it is, why you just take this girl so radically seriously, despite her overall silliness.

She wordless hands you the clothing and moves to the large metal cooling device they store food in. She pulls out a carton of something and sets it on the large metal counter spanning half of the large block. You silently put the clothing on as she prepares coffee in a tall, tiny back container that spews more noise than actual coffee. You sit back down on your seat, feeling bits of sopor drying in your hair and knowing it'll be hell to get out later.

You watch Nepeta go through the evening ritual you've missed because you were too busy being unconscious in the next block. She takes out three bowls and fills them with the stuff from the box. She returns to box to the cooling metal case and pulls a carton of what you assume to be milk of some sort. She pours it into the three bowls and puts metal spoons in all of them.

She takes one with her as she leaves the room. She comes back a few minutes later sans bowl. Nepeta strides over to the counter and picks up the remaining two bowls, walks over to your table and seats herself, handing you one bowl and keeping the other for herself.

You look at the bowl of food in front of you and want to cry. You take a deep breath through your nose and casually press a hand to your eye, squishing the liquid onto it. You pick up the spoon and eat what you presume is a sort of bran-type cereal. It doesn't taste like much, but it hurts to have someone make it for you. It hurts that Nepeta doesn't even like you that much and she just made you food without you asking for it, even if it was stupidly easy to prepare.

You feel just as shitty as you did the morning before and you want to say something and fall through the floor, into the mountain, into the core of the planet and get incinerated at the same time. You want to say that you feel sorry but you don't. You feel shitty for making Nepeta angry, but you don't feel sorry about it. You're a terrible person and you want to tell her that but your mouth is filled with cereal and your throat is constricting from you rejecting the urge to sob into your bowl-

"Vriska, we need to talk," Nepeta finally says, putting her spoon down into the bowl of milk and soppy flakes.

You swallow tightly and cough a little before answering. "What about?" Your voice is harsher than you mean it too be, your throat feeling raw and swollen.

"Equius... he thinks you should go," Nepeta says, looking small. She's not looking at you, instead finding the dings in the table to be immensely interesting.

This hits you in the face and breaks your teeth. Maybe that's why you don't say anything back.

Nepeta takes your silence to continue speaking. "I told him what happened the other night and he said I shouldn't have told you. I guess I _did_ tell you a bit much, and you really made me angry, then again you seem to take great joy in making people mad at you."

Nepeta pauses her, looking at you, gauging your face and reactions. You feel a bit of dried sopor dislodge itself from your hair and flit down onto the table. You _do_ enjoy making people angry and you're a disgusting person.

You just stare at her, the urge to cry shooting through your eyes again. Nepeta sighs. "Vriska, the one time you have nothing to say?"

You swallow dryly and answer, your voice smaller than you'd like it to be. "You've only known me for a week, Kitten."

Nepeta seems to be taken aback at that, actually leaning backwards in her chair. She looks at you solemnly for a few moments before cracking into a wide smile, showing all of her fangs. "I told Equius I was a cat and cats do what they want."

What. "What."

Her smile closes and shrinks. "I don't want you to leave, I think you're good for Equius. The two of you fight, but I'm the only troll he's talked to for sweeps, so really. I don't want you to leave. I mean, you seem to be in the same boat as us, you're missing limbs and your lusus is dead, right?" You don't say anything, though it is fairly obvious she's dead. "I think meeting you wasn't a coincidence, I think our lives are finally on the turn!" Nepeta's smile reinflates itself once she finishes and you are left floundering silently with your soggy cereal.

You don't know what to say to that, so you just give her a safe smile back. She nods and resumes eating. You don't really feel much like food anymore, so you pick up your bowl and go to the sink. You drain the milk into the sink and scrape the soggy flakes into the garbage before depositing the bowl into the wash basin.

Nepeta watches you as you leave the room and you can't of what to say other than, "I need to shower," and you heave the heavy door open and closed.

Equius is in the room, pounding shapes into pieces of flat metal.

You clear your throat, the fight returning to your limbs. "Hey Equisuck, looks like your cat likes me best."

Equius doesn't turn to you when he speaks, rather he just continues to stare at the bench and twisting the metal.

You become frustrated with his blatant ignoring and you stomp over to him, seating yourself on the bench. "You know, you have a lot of fucking nerve, putting your moirail through so much like that. She's the one person who _by definition_ loves you selflessly for the sake of everyone and you go and fuck with her shit. Bend yourself to me and tell me why you would do that."

Equius sighs and from this angle, you can peer behind his glasses and see his eyes. The orange is shot through with lines of blue with heavy blue bags underneath his eyes. Ew.

"Vriska, you are a deplorable person and I cannot fathom why Nepeta likes you as much as she does. Maybe she likes how different you are than her. Maybe she wants to be as tough as you say you are, though I haven't seen you be tough so much as you abuse those around you. If Nepeta didn't want you to stay, you would have been dead before you even could bleed on our floor, I can assure you that." Equius's tone is calm and his voice the usual quiet, composed sound it normally is. It disturbs you more that he doesn't even sound frustrated with you, but fuck it.

You don't take shit from this guy. "Equius, you're too afraid to leave your hive, so you have someone half your size leave it to go an steal it, possibly leading them to more danger. You break everything you touch, so you touch nothing. Your angst it so powerful over losing your sign to more disrespect, I'm surprised anyone can stand breathing the same air as you."

He doesn't respond and you hop off the table. "Maybe you should get over it."

He doesn't respond and you walk over to the ablution chamber hatch. "Then again, maybe your moirail'd be better off if you continued to hide yourself so she won't be embarrassed by you."

You close the hatch and step into the shower, letting the water hydrate the sopor and run it off your body. You remember how Nepeta said you were good for Equius and how literally shitty you were, and you ran your hands over your face, your skin pinching slightly in the coils of the metal one.

Fuck, now you're bleeding.

888

Once your shower is finished and you put on cleaner clothing, you feel better than you did before. You had gone to Nepeta and said you needed to her to come with you to find an old friend of yours. Equius had objected and you had told him to go fuck himself and Nepeta had said that the both of you smell.

Excuse me, you had just taken a shower, thank you very much. Equius sweats more than he drinks which you think could very possibly kill him one day.

"So, what furriend are we meeting?" Nepeta asks as the two of you depart for the library in the Imperial City. You are currently trying to exit the extensive forest Nepeta and Equius are secluded in..

"Well,"you grunt out as you smack aside brush and promptly get stabbed in your eye from the backlash. "She's not really a friend. In fact, we hate each other quite a lot. She's one of the reasons my arm's gone."

Nepeta lets out a startled gasp. "What? She took your arm?" She hops lithely over the thick roots twisting through the soil.

"Well it's not like she came up to me and demanded I hand it over. There was an accident with two other friends of mine who I don't really hate, and she got revenge on me for it." You swat aside a bunch of leaves and stumble into a clearing. "Oh sweet Mother Grub."

Nepeta titters as she lands lightly beside you on the grass. "So you're hate friends. What happened to your other friend?"

You pick yourself up off the ground and dust your pants off. "I took his legs so her and my other friend took my arm and eye. I took her body, or at least I tried to and took the other's eyes. But whatever I did didn't stick, she got her body back. I don't exactly know how, and I don't give a fuck." You continue walking.

Nepeta looks slightly put off with your blatant admission to maiming people you call friends, but shit. What does she want you to say, you said their lusus was fat? That's _too_ childish for you.

It takes you an hour to fight your way out of the forest and into the suburbs where you hail a towncar. In the towncar Nepeta strikes up your past conversation.

"What about the friend whose eyes you took?"

You turn your head away from the window and see Nepeta looking at you with her eyes that take up half her head.

You contemplate lying to her for a moment before telling her the truth. "She still can't see, but she became a legislacerator when we were 7 sweeps old. She's still a neophyte, though."

Nepeta takes in your small clip of a long story and resumes staring out the window. You'll tell her the whole thing eventually, but the middle of a car ride with some indiscriminate red troll driving

is not the right time.

You pull up to the library without incident. You enter without incident. You browse the stacks of cartridges and discs without incident. Nepeta asks where the old, paper books are and you are directed to the back of library without incident.

You walk into the dimly lit area and find a reason to cause an incident. Your friend is currently standing on a chair, attempting to reach something near the top of the case. You walk over and kick the only leg of the chair currently touching the floor, sending the small, round troll toppling to the floor along with all of the books she was holding.

"What the fuck!" she exclaims from the carpeted floor. She moves her hair around her large horns and when she sees you, she smiles.

"Vriska!" she says, her voice in her usual cool tone whenever speaking with you. "What an unpleasant surprise."

"Aradia!" you exclaim, throwing your arms wide to receive her cold indifference. It feels refreshing on your face and you suck in her waiting hatred with the love you reserve especially for her.

She doesn't move to hug you, but she picks up the books from around her and places them on a nearby table. Nepeta's placed herself on your back, clutching your shoulders and her legs wrapped around your waist. This particular stunt is stunningly recent, being an isolated event first occurring just now.

"This is your furriend?" Nepeta asks, pulling her way over your head and seating herself on your shoulders. You roll your shoulders around in a vain attempt to dislodge her. Aradia seats herself.

You decide to pull out a chair and seat yourself at the same table. "Nepeta Lejion, Aradia Megido. Aradia Megido, Nepeta Lejion," you say, gesturing as you speak.

Nepeta dismounts from your shoulders and perches herself on a chair you pull out for her.

"Charmed," Aradia says, smiling sweetly. Her chin is placed daintily on her folded hands. She turns her large, glossy eyes towards you and asks, "To what do I owe this displeasure?"

You smile back at her, leaning over the table. "Well Aradia, you know the plan we've been looking at for quite a while now? I believe Nepeta is the third to our group, you can get your maybesprit back from wherever he's been taken and I can finally get that pesky scales off my eyes."

Aradia contemplates this for a moment before turning her gaze to Nepeta. She looks at her and Nepeta does her best to look like she knows what you're talking about, but you've neglected to fill her in on all the details yet. Best she not know about most of what you've been planning until it actually goes down.

"Well," Aradia begins, her ocular orbs rolling to look at you. "You plan on bringing her along with us to what? Vriska, I need more information before I can agree to any other of your wild plans which will end up with us getting maimed and or dismembered in some way." Aradia's dry tone makes her usual sunny disposition distinctly arid and you're surprised it doesn't crack her painted lips as she talks.

Nepeta begins to speak but you cut her off. "Aradia, I met Nepeta while gathering information on this plan and while also maybe looking for things to sell. She almost killed me and then dragged me back to her hive to save me. I'm pretty sure she can handle herself if we take her with out with us. You never know, she might end up saving our asses."

Aradia closes her eyes and rubs her temples. She opens them slowly and looks at Nepeta. "You know the person you saved is terrible?"

Nepeta's mouth twitches slightly. "I've never saved a terrible person."

Aradia's perpetual smile turns sad. "Maybe not terrible to you."

You sit there while Aradia has a conversation with the plates affixed to her face with Nepeta's matching saucers. You aren't really too keen on Aradia telling Nepeta how terrible you are, but you're used to people hating you; you're very hateable.

"Are we not going to talk about how I don't know what's going on here?" Nepeta finally says to break the silence.

Aradia swivels to you. "You haven't told her what we're planning?"

"Would she be telling us she doesn't know what's going on here if I had told her? "

"I don't know, does your mind control work on midbloods?"

"You have mind-control-"

"Did I forget to tell you that?"

"I would say she forgot to tell you that."

"Well _fuck_," you say, slamming your hands down on the table to stop the madness. "Let's not talk about that right now. We have more pressing matters to discuss. Like that Aradia has been trying to find a maybesprit she hasn't seen in 4 sweeps?"

Aradia's lips flatten and her eyes narrow. "At least I'm being truthful, and how long have you known Nepeta?"

You purse your lips and look at Nepeta sideways. "A little more than a week. About 9 days."

Aradia smiles sharply, the edges of her mouth quirking to the side. She looks at Nepeta instead of you. "Is that enough time to really know someone?"

Nepeta glances at you looking at her from the corner of your eye for a moment before looking up at Aradia. Her face solidifies into an expression of utmost trust and it tears your pusher to shreds. "I think it is. Vriskers has had prime opurrrrtunity to kill my meowrail and I and she hasn't. She brought me here to meet you, and while she hasn't told me very much about what's _happened_ to her, I feel like know a lot about what she _is_."

She's never called you Vriskers before. You determine that you like it more than you should. Aradia starts to speak again.

She smiles genuinely on her round face, and you want to puke, you hate her so much. "I've known Vriska forever and no one's ever called her a good person! In fact, she ritually slaughtered young trolls when we were kids. But there must be good in every person, and Nepeta, I think you're capable of seeing that. Or at least you can put some there if none's to be found."

"Aradia, that's bullshit, we know the slaughter wasn't ritual."

"It was ritualistic enough."

"Vriska killed kids?"

You hold your head in your hands and lament how this shit is getting nowhere. Aradia says she needs to be going to hive soon and Nepeta suggests coming back to her cave.

"Meet me meowrail!" Nepeta chirps from her chair and Araida beams at her.

"I'd love to! But we need to stop at my hive first though, there are things I'll need to be bringing with me."

And with that, you leave the library feeling like you have accomplished nothing but embarrassing yourself, mostly because that's basically all that happened here. As you squish yourselves into a cab you comment that Aradia could probably just fucking drive you back to her hive. She comments that you can buy her a car so she can shuffle your ass places you want your ass to be. Nepeta says she doesn't know how to drive, there were no roads where she grew up. Aradia says she can teach her if they can get a practice car and Nepeta says she would love to!

You are sandwiched between the two of them and you feel as if you have lost control of your life.

You arrive at Aradia's hive without too many problems, aside from Nepeta and Aradia trying to converse over your body. You pay the driver and dislodge yourself after Nepeta springs from the car with Aradia following suit, her clothing hardly rustling. You hate how she never ruffles anything, nails never break, horns shiny and eyes a wonderful shade of red that gets you so _pissed_, you think you might try to kill her again. You _want _to, and you think it's time you get someone to auspisticize between the two of you, but you'll think of that later.

Aradia fishes in her bag for the keys she probably piled book after book on top of. She catches a large, clanging keyring utterly crammed with key after key. She shuffles through a few of them before selecting a large red one and unlocking the door with it.

"You still use keys?" you snort, crossing your arms over your chest. Nepeta frowns and Aradia sighs, rolling her eyes.

"Nepeta, do you use keys?" Aradia asks, gesturing inside of her hivestem.

As you climb the first flight of stairs, Nepeta answers, "My meowrail usually protects our hive. We have some pretty heavy doors and we're secluded, too."

"They live in a fucking mountain." You start up the next flight of stairs.

"Sounds nice," Aradia murmurs and soon you arrive at her hive flat. She unlocks her door with a smaller key, emblazoned with her sign. Probably how she tells her fucking keys apart.

"It's a fucking peach," you mutter resentfully as you enter the dimly lit room. There are stacks of paper everywhere and the air has a smoky quality to it. The walls and floor are a customary grey, but you can hardly see them under the posters and maps and photographs. The refrigeration unit is covered in pictures and stacked with heavy tomes. There are numerous head shots and panning shots of buildings. Maps of the train systems and flight routes are pinned over and under everything.

"Wow Aradia. You've cleaned since I've last been here," you say into the smoky darkness. Aradia flicks on a light and the room gains splashes of color on the tight grey. Precariously placed stacks of papers look ready to fall over as Aradia throws her bag down onto their occupied table.

"Make yourselves at home," she says as she goes further into the flat, probably to her respiteblock.

"Don't take too long!" you call before you hear a door slam shut. You snicker once to yourself and drape yourself over a chair.

Nepeta moves to sit on you and you let her. You like Nepeta trusting you, it makes you feel a little less horrible about all of the things Aradia makes you feel horrible about.

She curls on you and you remember you've only known her for 9 days. You feel like you should shove her off, but you allow her to sit on you as you go through the papers in front of you.

She looks at what you're reading and says, "Vriskers, do you think you know a lot about me?"

"Aha!" you exclaim, poking her in the side of the head. "That name!"

"What about it."

"You've never called me that before."

Nepeta raises an eyebrow at you. "I make cat puns. Maybe you bent your pan harder than I thought." She blinks at you, her slitted orbs disappearing and reappearing.

"You've never called me it before. I called you Kitten the first time I met you, you called me Vriskers tonight," you point out, pulling some more papers towards yourself and discarding others.

"Maybe I just thought of it."

"Maybe that's bullshit."

"Maybe you should answer my question, Vriska."

You blink and then sigh. _Where's Aradia, _you wonder. "Yes, I think I know a lot about you. You told me so much yesterday, it's hard to not think I can get inside your head as easily as I can get inside of a building."

Nepeta purses her lips and then shrugs, a smile growing on her face. "Alright! Now tell me what I'm not supposed to know yet."

You pull your head back slightly, and rearrange the sentence into something coherent in your skull. "You want to know what I'm planning? Aradia can probably describe it better, she's the one who wants it more."

Nepeta readjusts herself on your lap and reaches around for some papers. "What does Aradia even _do_?"

"I'm an archeologist and a bit of an historian," Aradia says as she walks into the room with bags and cases piled high in her arms. A small lusus follows her, carrying even more bags. She sashays to the table and plunks her baggage onto the floor, her lusus following suit. "I am currently gathering information on the enclave of the Condesce, because they are another step to getting into her castle to get my friend out. I owe it to him, and so does Vriska, which is why we are working together."

Nepeta looks a little put out so you speak up. "I'm only in this for the money. And the babes. Mostly the money, though." You wiggle your eyebrows at Nepeta and say, "The babes are a bonus."

Nepeta smiles and blushes at you, Aradia moving to her wall to call a public van, considering she seems to be planning on moving in with you and Nepeta and Equisuck.

Nepeta looks at the bags and then at you. "You can come stay with us for a while, Aradia. The more the merrier!"

You hold your face with your metal arm and end up cutting yourself. You need get a new pair of gloves, something tougher to stop you from cutting yourself every chance you seem to get.

Aradia turns to Nepeta and smiles. "Thank you Nepeta. I'll tell you our plans once we get to your hive. My stem hasn't been safe lately so I appreciate you offering to put me up." Aradia gets distracted by the phone in her hand becoming active for a few moments before she thanks the troll and hangs up. "The van will be here in 10 minutes."

You and Nepeta nod, you going back to reading through some of the papers on the table, deciding which to take with you.

"Nepeta," Aradais asks, "do you have internet?"

Nepeta nods then squints her eyes. "Yeah, but our grubtops are pretty beat up. Our wall one is pretty good shape, though. We do not have a TV."

You hear Aradia grunt a few moments after their exchange and so you look up to Aradia by the wall on the right side of the entrance pulling a small TV from the wall. She walks over to Nepeta and places it on the table.

"We need to stay informed. I can hook it up to the computer's cable streams." Aradia nods and you roll your eye before going back to your papers.

You read through a few of them before you have more shoved in your face and bat Aradia out of the way. She pulls piles of them and stuffs them into the cases and bags, only one of which you seemed to find was filled with clothing. "Aradia, just take the ones you need, shit."

"We need all of this." She shoves another stack into a bag and throws it over her shoulder, narrowly avoiding crushing her small lusus under the weight of a small forest.

"We do not need all of this right now. Just take the routes and maps and transcripts," you say, getting excited as you pull stacks of useless notes from her grasping hands. You knock over some books whichshe proceeds to catch and stuff into the suitcases as well. You pick one up and examine it, finding it to be a recreational book on archeology. "And some of your books, I guess."

You need help dealing with the tornado of papers so you go to call Nepeta over to help you sort the maps from everything else only to see her playing with Aradia's custodian. Fuck, she's rubbing around the creature's horns, and it's doing a weird sort of thumping on the floor.

"Nepeta! Unpin all of the maps from the walls and roll them up. We're going to need them."

888

Once the van arrives, you fill it with all of the crap Aradia packed, her lusus, and then yourselves. You get driven to the end of the suburbs before you exit the car and throw money at the driver. You can't believe you have to walk so far with all of this shit. Aradia carries her TV and a shoulder bag while you, Nepeta and Aradia's lusus carry the rest of the cases and bags.

By your very angry estimations, it takes you about two hours of falling over everything in your path to reach the hollowed-out mountain Nepeta calls her hive. Nepeta lifts up a leg to very precariously kick the door hard enough for Equius to hear over his angst.

He opens the door, sees Nepeta with 3 other beings covered in bags and paper, and promptly closes the door.

"Equius!" Nepeta yells angrily, kicking the door harder. She throws down her bags and proceeds to toss herself at the door.

Aradia's smiling slightly at the scene in front of her and you are not smiling in the least.

"Is this a common occurrence?" Aradia asks.

"If I ever get inside, I'll make sure it never happens again, if that's what you're asking," you deadpan. Your back hurts and the port for your arm is pulling painfully at the bone and skin under the weight of the books and bags and papers.

Equius opens the door finally and you push inside, toss your items to the floor and proceed to wilt onto one of the chairs.

"Vriska, stop being a drama queen," Aradia says. You look up to see her put down the TV and then stretch out her back.

Equius frets over the mass of people in his hive and the sudden lusus. He dances around as the small creature tries to get him to pet it and he tries not to kill it. Nepeta places her bundles down and laughs at Equius' discomfort.

Aradia sees her lusus scampering about and runs over, grabbing her and shooshing it petting it and rubbing its horns.

You look over to see a scandalized Equius unhappy to be having another troll there. He beckons Nepeta over and you just barely hear him whisper to her, _"Please stop bringing people back with you."_

**Alright, just a reminder that on archive of our own, it's posted with pictures at certain points. I love getting reviews on my work, please? Also, visit the tumblr at solarstuck maybe?**


	4. Eight Legs Through the Wall: Chapter 3

**Eight Legs Through the Wall: Chapter 3**

Perhaps allowing Aradia to come back with you was not something you should have done. She has usurped your place and taken the limelight away from _you_. You haven't even gotten to talking about how integrating Nepeta into The Plan will work. Shit, she hasn't even unpacked her ungodly amount of stuff yet. The cases and bags are still packed and stacked against a wall of the room, gathering dust right next to your place with these people.

Equius is staring, transfixed with Aradia. He is entirely enamored with everything about her, and you can't tell why. You squint at her from your place across the table at her, trying to find the source of Equius concentration.

She sits, her legs folded daintily under long skirt, pink wool tights apparent from her bare feet. Her red buttoned shirt is pressed primly without a crease in sight, the thick black shirt underneath pulled tightly against her round arms.. Her hands are set prettily in her lap, her hair calm and flowing around her.

You hate her to pieces. You can't even bring yourself to think what you want to do to her, kill her, maim her, rip her to shreds, _kill her matesprit._

But those didn't work, she came out fine every time.

Nepeta is sitting on Equius on the floor by Aradia. "I purrfurr it down here!" she'd chirped when you offered up your fine lap for her to plant her rump on instead of his sweaty one.

She hadn't even batted a red eyelash at discovering that _yes_, these were the Nepeta and Equius from the news, and _no_, they do not want revenge for what happened.

"I think it's great you can let go, though I haven't the slightest idea what it's like to lose your lusus," Aradia had said as she rubbed her lusus fondly. You're entirely positive she was, _and still is_, being condescending at you. She is never not burnt out on you and you are never not finished hating her.

"Equius hasn't let go," you had said, arms crossed over your chest and eyes closed.

Nepeta had looked at you sourly while Equius hadn't looked at anything but the tips of his bootlaces. Aradia had looked at you, laughed for a moment, and then continued to stare at you as though your horns had just transformed themselves into arms that were waving at her.

Equius and his "status" is a sore subject.

Aradia is currently speaking, the both of them transfixed from their spot at her side. She tells them about her job, her fascination with archeology and history. Equius' sweat production has cranked itself up to 11 and Nepeta tells him he smells. He should get up and get a towel before she drowns.

He stands up and whispers an apology, saying he'll be right back then practically jumps from the room. Nepeta jumps up and goes after him, saying there's something she wants to show Aradia and she needs to find it. Once they're out of the room, your head snaps to face Aradia.

"I didn't bring you here so you could just impress them with how exciting your life is!" Spittle flies from your lips and across the table as you hiss disgustingly.

Aradia just looks at you. Then she quirks her mouth and says. "You're too harsh, Vriska."

Your eye wants to escape from your head and launch itself right at her. "I'm too harsh? You're not here to play games with them and tell them stories about your life, you're here to convince that hulk of a moron that letting his moirail come with us will be a good idea and will in no way end the same way her past heists have ended."

"You mean with dragging to hive a nasty blueblood without an arm."

You hiss, your voice scraping against the walls. _"You slimy bitch."_

Aradia's voice grows just as dangerous as yours as she leans over the table at you. _"Ineffective manipulator."_

"_Curly-horned fuck."_

"_Your lusus is dead."_

"You killed her!"

"You tried to kill _me_!"

"Will ya look at how well that worked out."

Aradia leans back but remains standing. "I'm quite glad at how 'well' that worked out, circumstances and all."

You lean back too and try to cool off. "Never thought I'd ever hear you say you're glad about what happened to Captor." You put a smirk on your face, thinking you've finally won.

You don't. Aradia's face twists into something ugly, the pink flush creasing in her face. You curse when you see the silver and red light leak off her body. It drips from her horns and you see the smoky energy hit the floor and dissipate, fizzling out into nothing. Her lusus frets under her. The creature hops around frantically, patting Aradia's knees and hips, the only places it can reach.

Aradia's voice is dangerous, her hand poised over the now-glowing table. Her lusus grows a startled look and dives under an empty chair. "Vriska, we agreed we'd never talk about this. You go back on that agreement and so help me god, I will make you pay."

For the first time in your entire pitiful existence, you listen to your screaming thinkpan. You hear as it screeches at you to stop pushing her. It tells you you like having two legs, maybe she'll take one of those this time. You don't hate Aradia that way anymore, you want her in a quadrant, you don't really want to kill her and you really don't want her to kill you.

You back off. Your mouth is open slightly and you shake your head. Your arms are up in a sign of submission. You make a croaking noise. You are _afraid_.

Aradia takes a few deep breathes through her nose before sighing intensely. The glow from around her snaps out of existence, the air smelling cooked and broken. Aradia slumps heavily back into her chair and grabs her head in obvious pain. You can see tears gathering on her eyelashes, her mascara beginning to drag down her face.

Your pusher swells and pops, you hate her so much. She's so disgustingly pitiful and weak and she can't even keep her shit together about her exes. Yours is gone too; at least she _knows_ where hers is.

Then again, it's a moot point seeing as you mutilated both.

You slump in your chair and watch her cry, disdain thick in your gaze. "What's taking them so long," you mutter, crossing your arms over your chest. You huff expectantly and when Aradia doesn't answer, you sigh.

God, she's so awful.

"Aradia."

You hear a sniffle come from her and you want to vomit, she so disgustingly pathetic. "What, Vriska?"

"Stop pitying yourself and discuss with me how we're going to tell them about The Plan."

The sounds stop and she looks up at you, the tears clearing from her eyes as she looks at you. "Crying out of self-pity is something you do, Vriska. Not me. I'm just getting the headaches again."

You pull an open-mouthed frown and resist the urge to wrap your fingers around her throat. "I do not have self-pity, I get revenge."

Aradia quirks a smile at you and rolls her eyes. "Yes, that you do." Aradia's lusus crawls out from under the chair and hops nervously to her. It rubs a horn against her leg and Aradia smiles at it, reaching down to give it a pet.

You roll your eye. "What-_eeeeeeeever_. Can we just get this show on the road?"

Aradia brightens, pulling her lusus into her lap. "Well, Equius seems very attached to Nepeta, so he probably wont allow us to actually take her with us, though she may be necessary. I'm too warm for this time of year, I'll get spotted right away. She's cold enough though that she should be able to pass for someone around teal."

You look at the curled custodian for a moment before flicking your gaze to Aradia's face. "You can't not come. We can probably just restrict you to the inside of the building if we have too." You consider her red face, her red eyes, her reddening hair. "We'll need a lot of makeup."

She laughs a little. "I'll need a lot of layers to pull of a blue blood. We can't bring Equius, he's too recognizable."

"He sweats too much too."

"It is quite repulsive, yes." She stops her lusus grooming for a moment and looks at the metal portcullis they had disappeared through a few minutes ago. "Where did they go?"

You wave your metal hand absently. "Equius is drying himself and Nepeta is probably trying to find something she found or dug up a long time ago and hasn't been able to throw away." You snort. "You two would probably get along in that aspect."

Aradia's face turns to one that says she is done with your shit for the night. "Vriska, just shut the fuck up."

"Make me."

"I'm not the one with mind control."

You snicker. "This is true." You waggle your eyebrows, you mind flowing out to meet hers.

She feels it rub against her consciousness and shivers. "Vriska, stop it."

You waggle your eyebrows some more. "_Make me._" You lean over the table and leer at her.

Nepeta just so happens to choose this as a fine time to spring back into the room, her hulking moirail in tow. He carries a stack of folded towels with him and you are sure he is going to need to go and get more in an hour.

Nepeta pounces on Aradia, scaring the guardian from her lap and sending it scurrying across the room. Aradia looks concerned for a moment before having a rusted item shoved in her face.

You peer over at it and it looks like some sort of metal sail boat affixed to a scuffed and cracked blue rock. Except, it's too small. It's tiny, about the size of a melon.

Aradia holds her hands out and receives the small item. She holds it close to her face and asks, "What is it?"

"It's a music box!" Nepeta chirps. "You're an archeologist, I dug it up here! It looks really old and rusted, but it still plays."

Aradia smiles, folding her fingers around the rusted piece of metal. "You want me to find out what period it came from?" Aradia begins to wind one of the sails.

"I find stuff all the time here! You should keep it," Nepeta purrs. The object chirps to life, a simple melody tinkling from it.

"Please take it," Equius begs from his place on the bench along the wall. They have way too much shit in this hive. Aradia has too much shit in her hive. Everyone's hives are full of shit. Except your hive, your hive is full broken futures and broken bodies.

"I'll be happy to have it! I'll tell you when it came from when I find out." Aradia places the music box on the table, the song beginning to slow.

You don't say anything. You think the song is pleasant, very melodic. It's soothing and as it tapers into nothing, you reach for it to wind it again.

You turn one of the sails and the melody stutters to life once more. You stare as the pieces inside of it turn, the rusted parts grinding together and still functional after so much time and neglect. You wonder how it can still work, it surely must be missing springs and gears after so many sweeps.

The song tapers out again and as you go to wind it, you notice the silence. The music is gone but they haven't resumed talking. You look up to see the room staring at you.

"What?" you ask, starting to wind the machine again.

Equius and Aradia don't say anything, Aradia reaches to take the ancient object from your metal grasp. "Vriskers, don't break it."

You take a moment to notice the the small dents in the sides that weren't there before. Oh. You were crushing it. Didn't know your new arm had that much strength.

"Should've been made with stronger metal," you say distractedly, slightly unsettled that you hadn't even noticed that you were destroying the fragile relic.

"I'll ask when it's from later," Aradia says, nudging Nepeta off of her lap. Nepeta vacates in favour of Equius and Aradia walks over to her pile of crap, placing the orange-sized ship on top of it.

"Ask who?" Nepeta asks, scaling her moirail. She seats herself on his shoulders, her horns just shy of the high ceiling.

"Aradia hears ghosts," you snort, disdain dotting your words.

"What," Equius and Nepeta say in unison, both wearing mirroring expressions of confusion.

Aradia smiles but her eyes narrow and slide over to you. "It's a gift."

"It's a fuckin trip. It's how she knows all the shit she knows." You wave your hand around generally to emphasize the shit Aradia has stored in her thinkpan.

"They never tell me anything useful, though. They're always so cryptic with everything," Aradia huffs. "Then again, being dead must be boring. This is probably how they liven up their deaths."

"That is a contradictory sentence," you point out. Why does this bitch always have to be makin death puns?

Aradia's about to respond to your quip when she looks over to see Equius and Nepeta still slack-jawed at finding out about Aradia's sixth sense.

"It's not that uncommon for trolls of my caste to have psychic abilities, you must know that."

Equius doesn't say anything, just sweats more. You roll your eye. Nepeta manages to chirp out, "_That's so cool_."

Well shit. The floor goes back to Aradia and you slink back behind the curtains.

888

You are a force to be reckoned with, a force of _nature_. Listening to you and doing what you tell them is something you look for in a team, and your current one leaves you underwhelmed in terms of obedience. You're honestly surprised you and Aradia have yet to try and kill each other again. But hey.

You currently stand in front of the round table, your ragtag team around you, all of the four chairs occupied in what is probably the first time ever. Your hands are planted firmly, unmoving, the spread of your paperwork for The Plan laid out in front of you.

You swivel your head to the left, where Equius is seated. "Equiusuck!" you begin, pointing at him. "Me and Aradia need Nepeta to come with us on something we have been working on for many sweeps now!"

Equius looks frightened and more than a little taken aback. "What...?"

Your exasperated sigh is followed by your frustrated exclamation. "We need Nepeta to get a dress and pose as a highblood, preferably a teal! Any questions?"

"No."

"Alright, so here's-" you start to say as you turn to pick up documents, but are so rudely cut off.

It's Equius. "I said no to you taking her. You know what happened, why would you think this is okay."

You open your mouth to tell him exactly what you think of his 'no' and where he can mount it, but Aradia stops you.

"Equius," she starts in a very civil manner. "Every other annual there is a party held by the Grand Ringleader of the Empire's Slaves at their hive. So, twice a sweep the cohort of the Empress gets together in one place and talks about their lives, their jobs, and the upcoming 2 annuals, what their lusii have gotten into and such. More importantly, it will give me _the_ chance to get into the study of the Grand Ringleader and get her plans for the slaves of this half sweep."

Aradia leans over the table to look Equius directly in his cracked sunglasses. "Vriska and I have been planning this particular part of our grand scheme for two sweeps. Four of these parties have come and gone while we've gathered information, money, and the necessary paperwork to pose as intimates of Her Imperial Condescendsion." She stands, her hands planted firmly on the table. Her position mirrors yours. "If I have to wait another 12 perigrees to do this, _your loss of caste will be the be the least of your worries_."

You make an 'oh shit' face while Nepeta looks moderately frightened of Aradia's dark tone. Her words dripped with promise and intent, and you don't hesitate to wonder at what she might to Equius. Perhaps call on the spirits of the dead to haunt him or some shit. Maybe hide his towels, you don't know. All you know is shits gonna go down.

You clear your throat to get the attention back on you. "Yes, Aradia seemed to sum that part up quite nicely. Now, back to the important stuff." You grab a piece of paper covered with copies of Ids and hand it to Nepeta.

You wait for Nepeta to look at it before she asks, "What is this?"

You sit down and lean back in the chair, your arms folded over your chest. "It's three identities, one for me, one for Aradia, and one for the third to our party. Namely, you."

Nepeta opens her mouth to say something before she is overridden by a very angry Equius.

He slams his hands down onto the table, all items quaking with the force. "She is not going with you!" he shouts, his face blue. _Your_ face is surprised and his swings from angry to cowed. "My apologies, I should not have shouted." He takes his hands back and sits down, large dents left in the wake of his palms.

"Equius, you can't tell me what to do," Nepeta says, placing the paper on the table. "What if I want to know why they're doing this?" Nepeta looks at you and you wink. You hope it doesn't look like a blink.

"Nepeta, you're going to get caught again," Equius whispers pitifully and your gag reflex begins to kick in. How can someone be so unattractively pitiful?

Nepeta smiles and reaches for him. It looks awkward and you really want to continue with this thing, but Aradia kicks your shin and you have the decency to keep your maw shut.

"Vriskers and Aradia won't let me get hurt." Nepeta pets his face and situates herself in a more stable manner. She's sitting on his lap, one arm looped loosely around his neck.

"No one's getting hurt on my watch again," Aradia says, gathering more papers for everyone to look at.

Equius doesn't seem convinced, but he shuts up. Nepeta paps his face.

You explain the plan to Nepeta and Equius. You are going to pose as highbloods, Aradia will try to pull off a your blue with much makeup and planning. You are going to stay a comfortable blue, and Nepeta will try for a teal, which she should take easily.

Equius still does not seem satisfied with your plan, worried about Nepeta being in danger and such close proximity to head slaver in the galaxy. You tell him to quit worrying, if there's danger to be found, you'll find it and personally beat it to death. He does not seem placated.

It does not matter if he is placated or not, Nepeta seems to do what she wants with little regard for her moirail. She'll listen to him on some things, but the things she really wants to do, she'll just do. And _god_, if it isn't wonderful.

You wrap the meeting up before the sun comes up, Nepeta and Equius retiring to the next block to sleep in the blue recuperacoon. They leave you and Aradia to duke it out for the remaining one.

"Welp," you state as you stare at it.

"Yeah," is Aradia's only reply.

After a few moments of just looking, her lusus hops over and headbutts the back of your knees.

You shout and regain your balance. "Aradia, keep a check on your lusus!"

Aradia snickers and picks the small white creature up. "Sorry, _Vriskers_."

Your lips pull back in a snarl, your blood beginning to boil again. "Shut the fuck _uuuuuuuup_."

Aradia just smiles at you. "You can take the recuperacoon. I can handle another sleepless night."

You want to say no, to say that she can take her gift and shove it up her chute, but just thinking about the nightmares makes shivers crawl up your spine and your pan freeze over. You know that if you don't take the sopor, you'll remember your lusus and your old life. The tearing, the blood and limbs everywhere. Spatters on the basement of your hive, a gory rainbow now surely dulled to a uniform gray-black, will always be as bright as they were when they were freshly dropped.

So you say, "F_iiiiiiii_ne. But only because I don't want to eat any of this shit to keep the nightmares away, I like having a functioning pan, thank _you_."

Aradia just rolls her eyes and goes to get a few blankets and maybe some pillows to make an acceptable pile to sleep on. She leaves the block and you take advantage of being alone to get naked and get in the slime. Then again, do you really want to deprive Aradia of a view of your awesome ass?

You ruminate on this for a moment before you decide that yes, you would love to deprive her of it. You slide into the slime, the gooey sopor adhering to your tired legs and easing the tension there. You don't realize how tired you are until it envelopes your horns, effectively sedating you.

Sleep overtakes you before you hear Aradia come back into the block..

888

Waking up the next evening is a violent and draining affair. You do not know what roused you from sleep, but you do know that it is too early to be awake. Your eye is gummed shut with sleep and you find it difficult to open it without scratching the crusted _gunk_ from it first. You sit up, pulling yourself from the sopor. It seems harder to achieve than other times, and you can guess your sleep was less than restful. You manage to pull yourself into a sitting position and lean on the lip of the rubber aparatus. You hear the soft muttering of an imperial kidnapping which indicates she has gotten the TV hooked up and in a functional state.

The first thing you see is that the table has gotten significantly closer to the recuperacoon. The second thing you see is Aradia sitting at said table, hunched over numerous tomes and papers. She picks up the music box and winds one of the sails, the tinkering music spilling from it.

You lay your head on your arm, your eye slipping closed as you listen to the lovely melody. It wraps itself around your horns and vibrates down them, entering your aural clots. You sigh.

You feel Aradia looking at you and you open your eye. She smiles. You see she's eating something, surely the first thing to be consumed of the day, with many more to follow before the end. You give her a small smile in return before sighing again.

"It's supposed to sound better to different shaped horns," Aradia says, finishing the small cake she was eating.

"Hmm?" you ask, the peace the music brings relaxing your muscles into a jelly. The melody tapers out again and you wake up slightly from the stupor it put you into.

Aradia chuckles and picks the toy up again, showing you gears inside of it. "Straight horns with curved tops will find this noise to be the most pleasing. The way the vibrations hit it feel sweeter to those particular shapes" Aradia takes it away from your field of vision and places it on the table. "So it sounds much more calming to you and probably to Tavros."

Aradia pauses to look at your eye before asking, "Where _is_ Tavros?"

You close your eye and respond the same way you always do. "I didn't kill him."

She responds with her age-old answer."Well, I would know if you did."

Everything is dark as you listen to Aradia speak. "I consulted a few spirits who had something to impart, though it really only helped in nailing down a time frame. The rest I found in my books." You hear her pat something, probably on her stacks of deforestation. "It's a replica of the Music of Time, the music boxes _of_ Time."

Your eye slides open at this. "You mean Nepeta dug up ancient religious tourist fodder?"

Aradia seems unamused with this. "No, it's a bit more important than that. You know how it goes, Time was so brilliant for her short time she created two ways to extend her life beyond the normal means. When she finally caught up to herself, she died and the two Time Pieces were left behind." Aradia holds the piece up for you to see. "This is crafted expertly to survive as long as it has, which is on the higher side of 5,000 years. It was probably kept inside of a red shrine along with its partner."

You raise an eyebrow, the grogginess slowly leaving you. "And this has to do with what?"

"Well, it's extremely valuable, especially to a museum or a temple. If we had its sister, it would be worth more." As she speaks she put the rusted piece down and picks up her book. She points to a small illustration which looks pretty much the same as the lovely trash. Though with a lot less rust.

"So it's worth something, eh?" you ask, your faculties coming to you further with the promise of cash. You sit up more in the slime, more at attention. Your current state of nakedness does not concern you in the face of _profit_.

Aradia frowns and takes the book from you. "We are not going to sell it." She sighs, closing the book. "We'd need both to really sell it."

"Well let's dig some shit up and see what we can find."

"Vriska, you go tell them you want to destroy their hive to look for a relic that might pay for the damages you caused."

You cross your arms over your chest and suddenly become aware of your nakedness now that the face of profit has turned away from you.

Aradia looks at you and turns red. She turns away and covers her eyes. "I'm not looking."

You take the opportunity to get out of the slime and grab your clothing, pulling your shirt on. You tug it below your hips, trying to make it fit as you dance to the metal hatch. You open is quietly so as not to disturb Equius and Nepeta and run to the ablution chamber.

When you get out, Nepeta and Equius are already up and chatting with Aradia. You walk over and discuss the plan. Equius is still a no go, but Nepeta is an "I do what I want!"go, so the plan is still a-go.

You smile disgustingly to yourself as you think that. God, you're so clever.

You and Aradia break it to the two of them that the party isn't for another perigree, but hey. Thems the breaks.

**Welp. Pictures are on Ao3 and go to the tumblr or asks and pictures as well. Lets discuss how this made you feel.**


	5. Eight Legs Through the Wall: Chapter 4

**Eight Legs Through the Wall: Chapter 4**

You spend the next perigee preparing for the gala. Aradia tried to show Nepeta how to drive with an old mobile one of the forest trolls gave them, but they ended up taking down so many trees it became worthless. Equius' fascination with Aradia becomes apparent after she is with you for a measly five days. He begins to stutter around her and sweat more profusely than you thought possible, nearly drowning you in the sheer volume of it. Aradia does not seem to reciprocate, and she really seems to be put off with his awkward flirting.

In fact, she seems to begin to _hate_ him. You want to feel jealous but you don't. You think you should maybe do something, but fuck it. Live dangerously.

She becomes sick of his whining and just knocks his mantle of butt-hurt to the floor, crushes it, and then feeds it back to him. It's so fantastic, she just completely tells him off, how he shouldn't be so sad over something that happened so long ago over something so flawed as the hemospectrum. Oh, so wonderfully _true_. You want to beat him up, he makes Nepeta feel like shit and he doesn't even realize it. She blames herself and you feel bad about it.

You feel bad. You don't feel bad, it's not something you do. And yet, you have come to the conclusion that you pity the small cat girl so hard, you think you'll be physically ill. Your innards clench when you look at her first thing in the evening and stay tangled with each other until you force yourself to sleep. The way your insides slide against each other when she looks at you or really has _anything_ to do with you makes you want to hide. You want to bury your head and never see anything again because you have no idea how to deal with these emotions.

The worst is, you have no idea of knowing if she feels anything other than the usual merriment she has for everything. You wouldn't be able to check if you could though, the thought of mind controlling her because you want to know if she pities you too is disgusting, and you are not _that_ disgusting.

The thing about you is that you are an easy person to hate. You fall into that love easily, almost effortlessly. You're a deplorable person, and others love your hate. You are usually only too happy to receive it from them.

But whenever you pity someone, they end up hating you because you water yourself down. Or maybe you tear yourself down, you don't even know.

All you know it that you are in a love so pitiful, your pusher can't take it. This small, straight-bodied girl with an idiot for a moirail makes you want to make yourself better, give up crime, apologize for ripping Tavros' legs off. And you don't feel sorry for taking his legs, it's just something that happened. Feeling bad for it won't reverse it.

You regret ever going into the hive on that night. You regret ever happening upon the olive-blood and getting yourself into this mess. And you love messes, but this is one your pusher can't take.

"Vriskers?" Nepeta asks, and you're snapped out of your reverie. You, her and Aradia are currently on your way to the Grand Ringleader's hive in the center of the Imperial City. Your intestines curl uncomfortably in your stomach.

"Hm?" You don't turn to look at her, just continue staring out of the town car's window.

"Are you sure this is going to work properly?"

You smile at the passing buildings. "Of course, Kitten. Get in, make chitchat, get paperwork and loot, get out." You wave your metal are in a show of the simplicity of the plan. "Simple."

Nepeta seems placated, and you go back to ruminating. The Plan. Yes, it had been difficult, you had managed to make it work. You and Aradia already had dresses planned and stored in Aradia's hive, but Nepeta was a hard find. Though finding proper clothing was the least of your worries.

Aradia runs at a nice 44°C and as such, she is frightening warm. When compared to your own body temperature of 28°, she is downright on fire. As the lowest of the lowbloods, her gray pigmentation has already begun to wear itself thin. Her hair, skin, eyes, the whole shebang was tinted her special red.

You had started with dying her hair blue and then black. It had gotten rid of the red lights in her hair and replaced it with blue so she wasn't just shot on sight. Blue contacts for her eyes, a truck of gray make-up to conceal her lowblooded blush. Then more blue makeup on over that.

But that was just the cosmetic stuff. Up next came clothing. Being in the middle of Gelid, the coldest annual of all, the air was frozen over and made anyone below blue have visible breath. A fully clothed dress, long sleeves, all insulated would keep Aradia from freezing and shivering and giving you away and getting you all killed or sold into slavery. Because that is a very real possibility.

As for the body temperature issue, your plan is for Aradia to wear leather gloves and carry around ice packs in her purse. It's the best you can do with the little you have, and you doubt she'll really need to be touching many people.

Nepeta, as olive, would pull of teal easily, maybe even cerulean, though that may be pushing the envelope too far. Equius has elected to stay back at his hive and monitor your feed between each other. Two small wired rings attached at the base of your horns and taped behind your ears allows you to hear the microphones attached to the earrings the three of you are sporting.

You come back to your surroundings as you pull closer to the large castle. The estate is surrounded by numerous trees and statues of the old trolls, all lining the winding pathway up to the mansion. Your gut tightens as you round to the large metal gate, a lowblooded troll stationed outside.

You take a deep breath through your nose and exit the vehicle, Aradia and Nepeta follow suit and you pay the driver. He drives off as you turn to the troll at the gait who asks to see your invitations.

Aradia hands him the three she had "acquired" for you a few perigees ago. He asks for ID and the three of you hand him the fake cards Aradia had also managed to procure.

He reads them aloud, seeming to have trouble processing the words properly.

"Helleh Ibexis," he says, squinting at Aradia's card and then her face. She smiles, her dimples popping into existence. You take a moment to note how she's breathing sparingly and through her nose in an attempt to stop her breath from being seen.

He moves onto yours. "Serran Antars." You smile viciously, your fangs sticking menacingly from your face.

He shivers and tackles Nepeta's. "Sereen Regulu?" Nepeta smiles, her chubby face expanding and growing rounder.

He sighs and hands you back the cards. "Have a lovely time," he says as he pushes the gate open to allow you in.

The entrance is a large courtyard filled with trolls. You spot numerous seadwellers and grab Nepeta's arm to stop her from getting too close. Aradia sticks closely to you as well, though makes no move to hold onto you.

You move across the crowd to the massive, white doors sitting atop a massive flight of stairs. Large columns line the case and support the roof's overhang, intricate carvings and centuries old framework poking from the columns. You enter the mansion so you can great the Grand Ringleader and maybe get Aradia and Nepeta into a warmer place so they don't freeze.

You enter the room and you have a moment to take in that there is no one here below teal, and anyone who is is surely a servant, a slave. There has probably never been a free troll below teal to walk on these floors. Well, that has just been smashed into nothing.

The throng of people is less so here and you can walk around more freely. The three of you shuffle a bit further in and you trip on Aradia's large, ruffled dress.

This draws the attention of the large male troll next to you. He moves to help you up, his hands cold on your arm and you know he's a seadweller. Nepeta seems to shy away but Aradia doesn't betray any feeling of alarm, she simply seems unamused with the intruder.

You look at his face and he looks abominably familiar. He bows to you, his large and curling horns narrowly missing goring your remaining eye. "Grand Stratega of the Empire," he says, his voice smooth and old. He's the troll who handles all of the armed forces in the galaxy. Right next to the Condesce in manner of important people.

You return the bow and state your name and occupation. "Serran Antars, Archeradicator in training."

He smiles, his face and mannerisms chilling. "Lovely to meet you," he says, his eyes half-lidded and heavy. His voice is thick with the drawl of the seadwellers, and you have a hard time understanding what he's said before he slides into the next sentence.

He gestures to Aradia and Nepeta. "Your lovely companions would be?"

Aradia's smile is closed and tight and she holds out her hand which you hope to god is the right temperature. "Helleh Ibexis, Storiologist."

He smiles back at her. "Charmed." He doesn't make any indication that he noticed Aradia was practically on fire, but maybe _just maybe_ you plan is working and not everything is going to go to shit.

He looks at Nepeta, who is looking at the floor. You step in front of her slightly before saying, "Sereen Regulu, Archereradicator as well. She doesn't talk much."

He chuckles lowly, his face pulling upward with his smile. "Talking can complicate things, especially in that line of work."

You smile at him, your blue lips stretching over your fangs. "Exactly. As charming as this has been, we really should go greet the Grand Ringleader," you say, waving your gloved arms towards the grand staircase at the center of the block where the Ringleader herself is perched, greeting guests and mingling.

He catches your flesh arm. "I wish to speak with you further though," he says, a slight pout on his face. Then, an idea seems to assuage him. "I'll introduce you three to her, as I have yet to greet her. Then your friends will be allowed to mingle and I will have the pleasure of introducing you to the guests I have brought."

You really don't want him to do it, but he does anyway and the three of you are herded up the case to the Ringleader. Aradia grumbles at you and stays clearly out of everyone's way. Nepeta seems spooked and laces her fingers with your flesh ones. She feels warm.

The old troll brings you to the Grand Ringleader and it feels surreal to be this close to her. She probably knows where Tavros is and where Sollux is and where every potentially dead kid is and she's hosting a party and drinking and gossiping with her friends while kids beg to be killed.

You admire her a little for her inability to give two fucks.

She squeals when she sees The Stratega and moves to kiss his cheeks. "Darling!" She's clutching his face in what seems to be a pale show of affection but these highbloods are always acting strangely with each other. Her frame is tall and thin, her face scarred and sallow. Her dress and long feathered boa hang on her loose frame and dangle off all of her sharp edges.

The Stratega grips her hands and kisses one. "I am pleased to have been able to make it. The sewers have been very actively lately, though that only seems to make more business for you."

She grins, hungry and shark-like, her eyes darting to you. "Of course, without those misguided children, where would I be?"

He chuckles again and the throaty sound shakes your bones. "Ever the optimist." He then steps to the side and gestures to the three of you who seem to be joined at the hip. "I have had the great fortune of meeting these three fine young women and figured, why not introduce them along with myself?"

You tug Nepeta into bowing with you while Aradia gives a delicate curtsy. The three of you state your names and occupations again for The Slaver. She doesn't make a move to touch any of you and you are thankful for her choice on the lack of contact, it makes your life just that much easier.

She says she's pleased to meet you and that she needs to attend to more guests, some of them are just hopeless without her, you know how it is. You think you see her give the Stratega a look, but it's gone as fast as it came, disappearing with her.

You don't really know how it is and before you can say as much, you are pulled away from Aradia and Nepeta by The Stratega.

You open your mouth to protest, but he speaks over you. "I meant what I said about wishing to speak with you more, your friends will be just fine." You look back to see Aradia shaking her head and Nepeta's eyes fall out of their sockets.

"I'd really appreciate it if you let me get back there with them, Sereen is helpless without me and Helleh will probably just scare everyone," you babble as he leads you towards a hoard of blues, violets, and purples.

He says they'll manage without you the same time the receiver behind your ear crackles to life. "Nepeta and I will try to get into her archives, you just keep him busy, Vriska."

You sigh and you meet his cohort. He introduces you to five trolls under his command, one blue, two purple and two seadwellers. They make pleasant enough conversation, but it's difficult to concentrate on them and the blurbs you get from Nepeta and Aradia.

You desperately want to go and check on them, to see if Nepeta's alright, but The Stratega keeps you in place, chatting your ear off and getting more and more in your personal space. He pushes closer and closer, touching you in different places and he's so old his hair is turning a fine shade of violet.

He keeps his eyes at a smiling, heavy-lidded level and his mouth always has a small twist to it, as if he's holding a private joke with himself. He's not unattractive, his face made of sharp angles and scarred skin. He's taller than you are and his horns make pleasant shapes in his slicked back hair. You know he has an interest in you from the feels he's thrown at you, though you have yet to discover why. Maybe he finds you too lovely to pass up, what with your exciting face and fantastic body.

He finally takes you away from his cohort and over to a more secluded part of the mansion, behind a locked door. The walls are lined with books and thick chairs upholstered with rich purple velvet dot the floor. He has your hand and he takes you over to a large loveseat, urging you to sit down. You think defying him will be seriously bad for your health so you sit and watch him as he goes over to the large desk in the far side of the block and takes out what seems to be a decanter and two glasses. He brings them over to the loveseat on a tray.

You whistle at the fine crystal he hands you. The glass is filled with a liquid you assume to be liquor and you _assume_ he didn't give it to you so you could sit there and stare at it.

You knock the sizable amount of liquid back and gulp it together. It's a painful swallow and creates a tight knot in your throat. He leans over on the side of the couch and slowly sips his glass. He smiles lazily at you and chuckles at the light liquid gathering in your eye at the soreness in your throat.

"You seem very young, have you ever had a drink before?" he asks his eyes sliding over your dress.

You quirk your lips at him and move to pour yourself another drink. "I'm 10, of course I've had a fucking drink."

He actually barks out a laugh at this and has to sit up straighter so his glass doesn't spill on him. You can't help but smile, his laughter infectious.

"I can't imagine people not being so candid with you when you ask such a stupid question," you mutter, taking a small sip of your glass this time.

"You've got more fire than ice in your veins, hm?" He sits closer to you and sips some more, draining his glass.

"More than you."

He smiles quietly and looks away. "So how did you end up with an invitation?

You lean back and blow some hair from your face. "Well, my squad was the one that busted that resistance platoon last annual, and The Grand Ringleader invited all of us as a token of gratitude for supplying her with many more 'points' on interest," you recount your memorized spiel complete with air quotes. You can hear Aradia and Nepeta talking quietly with someone the guests and wish you were out there with them instead of inside of a study with a very old troll who is probably going to be groping at your dress pretty soon.

He just nods at you and tops off your glass. You squint your eye at him and he just smiles back at you.

"So, how did you lose an eye?" he asks after a moment.

You consider what you should say and just end with, "Training accident."

"And your arm?" he inquires, eying you from the side.

And you thought you'd kept it so well hidden, ah well. Trolls lose body parts all of the time. You smile at him, your grin becoming more lazy. _"Training accident."_

He chuckles and slides close to you, his arm going over to pull off your glove. You swat him away and he tells you he just wants to see it.

So you let him.

And fuck you, you don't get why you ever let him.

He pulls off your glove and looks at your arm. "Fascinating, I've never seen such a quality prosthetic before. May I inquire as to where you got it?" he asks, looking up at you.

Your pan feels a at ease, and you think of what to say. After a few moments you decide to say where you got your original arm. "I made it."

He continues to examine it, commenting about how expertly placed the parts on it are. "How did you manage it with one arm?"

"Well, I'm right-handed, so you know..." you say, trailing off as you realize what he's about to do.

And you can't pull away, your reaction time too slow for his quick hands. You watch as he take's his claw and pushes it through one of the rings of metal keeping your arm together and you get a shooting pain in your arm and then nothing. Your arm goes dead and you jam your hand into his face, shoving him away from you.

"What the fuck," you scream and you kick and flail your legs, spiking him in the gut with your feet.

He backs off, but only for a moment. He grabs your thrashing legs and sits on them, holding your right arm with him left. "You have a lot of gall!" he says, reaching a hand up to trace the curvature of one of your horns. "Coming to an Imperial Gala dressed as two thieves and a lowblood seems like a good plan, but in retrospect, not very much."

This close up you can see many thin scars webbing across his face. You want to make a comment about how ugly they make a person.

"What," you say instead.

He laughs, the highblood insanity etching itself on his face. "You, a highblood who throws away their god-given right to greatness in favor of rolling around with filth is a topic of interest among members of the Empire!" He leans in closely to your ear and whispers, _"Vriska Serket, your horns are very distinguishing."_

Oh. Well. "This is awkward."

His following laughter is barking and violent. "Ms. Serket, you are a funny one!" He leans a bit back on you and offers up a deal. "You can come and be a part of my cohort if you lead me to the other traitor to the Empire and her moirail or I can give you to the head of the legislacerators." He tilts his head to the side and contemplates the fine points of your demise. "Come to think of it, I believe the Grand Despoeta is here tonight. Make my job simple for me, girl."

You ruminate on what he says and what he's offering. You'd probably gladly take offer had something extremely compromising hadn't happened to you in the span of the past perigee. The small girl whose horns hardly touch your shoulder has taken your pusher and wrapped it up and given it back to you with her prints all over it. She's replaced the blue in your veins with green and you don't even regret it, you'd send yourself right onto the lances of the cavalreapers for her. You'd throw yourself at the feet of Terezi and Aradia and Sollux and Tavros and beg for forgiveness if it would only make her happy to see you every night.

And he's asking you to mail her to him with a neat bow.

You look up at him and he's waiting expectantly for your answer. You inhale through your nose and whisper your answer to him. He leans in closer, telling you speak up.

You take another deep breath and whisper softly into his ear, _"Go fuck yourself." _You latch your teeth onto the frills of his ear and _tear, _the tang of iron and pigmentation thick on your tongue.

He howls sharply as his ear is shredded, violet blood streaming down onto your face. He shoots backwards, his hands leaving your body in favor of cradling his broken ear.

You push yourself up with your arm and the jostling knocks your arm the rest of the way out of its port and it clunks to the carpeted floor.

He tries to get back up but you kick him with your heeled foot and send him reeling to the floor. In protest of the urge to break your hand over his head, you reach down and pick up your metal appendage. You approach the sad sack of shit on the ground and contemplate not beating the ever-loving _fuck _out of him, but you push that thought down.

There are some things a girl's just gotta do.

So you raise your arm about your head and _beat that motherfucker with it_. You whale on him and he tries to get away at first but after one of the blows cracks his horn, he passes out. You keep trashing him with the chunk of metal, breathing heavily and screaming on the down-stroke.

You calm down after a bit of beating and look at him. He's a bloody mess, his royalty spilled and sopping the carpet, the violet sticking in the grease in his hair. His chest flutters with short shallow breaths and the ear you tore lies in ribbons, even more royal purple pumping from his body. His face is crushed and a horn is broken and you look at the arm in your grasp and see the blood clogging the interlocking metal rings and it's dripped onto your glove and now you're gloves purple and you can smell the oily metal tang of blood and you want to puke everything in your stomach.

So you do, your stomach clenching and squeezing the alcohol you'd just drank from your body. As you lay there, retching over the coffee table in front of the loveseat, you can't help but think of how familiar the scene is to you. You'd seen bodies before, most even more horribly mutilated than this, and yet, you have never been so repulsed. Maybe it's the reality of the situation,maybe it's because you did for someone else other than yourself, maybe you're scared.

Actually, you think it's because you just tore your arm off and beat someone nearly to death with it and you're out of practice.

You straighten up and figure if his pan isn't swelling too much, he'll probably wake up soon. You drop the arm you were clutching and pull your glove off with your teeth. As you do this, the adrenaline begins to filter out of your blood and you become aware of the frantic whispering in your ears.

"Vriska? _Vriska, are you alright?"_ you hear Aradia hiss into your head. You tie the Stratega's hands together and around the leg of the loveseat, taking care to put him at an angle where he won't be able to get leverage to escape.

Nepeta's voice crackles to life directly after Aradia's. "We heard screaming are you alright?"

You don't answer and just focus on finding your other glove to stuff into his broken mouth. Nepeta becomes more worried. "Vriska, answer me! Vriska! _Vriskaaa!"_

You sit on the couch to collect your thoughts, their worried words zipping through your pan. Your head in your hand, you answer them, your throat cracked. "I'm fine, I've just had an accident. On the plus side, I think I've made it into the Ringleader's study."

You can hear Nepeta sigh with relief and Aradia sigh in disappointment.

"We've been trying to get into her private quarters, but it's too heavily protected and people might be getting suspicious. Tell us where you are and we'll come to help you look," Aradia states business like and unattached. You hear her grab someone, most likely Nepeta and murmured apologies as she rushes past people.

You tell her where you are and you hear a hushed moan from below you. The Stratega is awake.

He grumbles and groans and you look down at him, the cuts and welts on his head beginning to coagulate and stop him from bleeding out.

"You're awake," you deadpan, the calm in the quiet room eerie. "That's good, at least you're not dead."

He glares through your face, his eyes throwing hate at you. You lean close to his scarred visage. "Listen to me, they're not filth. None of them are, I'm the filthy one and you know what, _I like it_."

He tries to push your glove out of his mouth, but instead ends up drooling on it.

You point to yourself. "I'm a highblood who acts like a lowblood. To _you,_ that is me. To lowbloods, I'm a highblood who acts like a highblood. My caste designates that I have certain standards to live up to, but they don't designate what lowbloods should see those standards as."

You grab your arm off the table and pat him with it, the thick blood spattering. "I act like a highblood, but to you, I want to be a lowblood. Well, I don't. I don't want to be on the goddamn caste system, I want to break that motherfucker _down."_

You smile at him, your teeth stained with his blood. You want to say more to him, tell him how much he's failed the Empire and how fucking great being scum is, but there's a soft knock on the door and drag your hand down your face, getting up to make sure it's not an imperial platoon or something completely possible like that.

Instead, it's Aradia and Nepeta. You let them in, and as soon as the door is shut, Nepeta launches herself at you, burying her face in your neck. Her feet don't touch the floor and she's relying entirely on you to hold her up.

She let's out a hysterical-sounding gurgle of your name and you realize she was _scared_ for you. "Vriskers, we didn't know what was going on, all we heard was shouting and fighting and then someone was screaming and we thought he'd hurt you and I was afraid you were gonna get _really_ hurt-"

You cut off her frantic babbling by pressing her into your collarbone more, feeling her soft heat sink into your bones. "Shoosh, I'm okay, _I'm okay_, my arm's just a bit messed up and my dress is ruined," you murmur, holding her easily with one arm. She's so _tiny._

Aradia clicks her tongue at the two of you to calm yourselves, we've got work to do; tell her what the fuck exactly happened. You don't put Nepeta down and jerk your head in the direction of the injured seatroll.

You waddle over, Nepeta now sitting in your grasp and Aradia rushes over to the bloodied loveseat. The Stratega is glaring from his drying puddle of blood and Aradia gasps when she sees him.

"Vriska, what did you _do_ to him?" Aradia hisses, her voice and posture strained.

You shrug, tired and elated at the same time. "He recognized me and took off my arm. So I beat him with it."

Nepeta looks at you, down at the violet stains covering your face and dress, her face knotting with worry. You bump her up and she holds your face, red or white or just affection you have no idea.

"Vriskers, how are we going to get out of here, you're a mess...?" Nepeta asks, moving her thumbs along your cheek bones.

You can't handle it, her so close like this. It hurts that you're a terrible person and how could someone so _good _ever even like someone like you? You put her down gently, telling her to think about it while you and Aradia search for the documents you came for.

Nepeta goes to get your arm and stands by the Stratega, staring at him. You and Aradia begin to search for the Slaver's files on her subjects.

You listen to Nepeta as the two of search. She's talking to the Stratega.

"You have to kill to get your position, right? Well, you have to do that for most things in our life, right?" Nepeta asks, her voice small and compassionate.

You hear savage grunting and snarling from the bloody brinesucker.

"You started as an Heiress' Advisor and had to kill the old one, just like the Heiress does to the Empress. You aren't the one the Condesce had when she was young, however long ago that was. You're a new one that killed her old one while she killed your Heiress."

The Stratega doesn't make a sound.

Nepeta continues and you find a paper file labeled "Sewer Construct." Huh.

"Do you miss her? How long ago was is she that she lost? A thousand sweeps?" Nepeta fires question after question, her voice soft and sad.

Oh god, this file is the jackpot. Intricate, detailed plans on the different bases of resistance in the sewers, under buildings, underground. You look at the front again and a series of signatures and stamps tells you this is the only existing copy of it.

"Do you like the Condesce? Do you resent her for killing your best friend, your girl?" Nepeta asks as you wave Aradia over to you.

"Shit, look at this!" you whisper hoarsely in excitement. Aradia considers the document in your hand and her eyes grow wide, the ocular orbs bulging from their sockets.

"Vriska, this shouldn't just be here like this. You know what this is? This is all of the in-tell the Empire has gained on the pockets of resistance. And not just the groups, this the main base of opperations. And, if this is the only copy of this, we have the opportunity no one has ever had before!" Aradia's voice rises with her excitement, her joy at this file bouncing around the room. The smell and taste of blood are still thick in the air

"Was she your moirail?" Nepeta asks. The Stratega makes a choking noise, like coughing under a blanket.

"What do you mean it shouldn't be out like this," you ask, your voice flat.

"Well," Aradia starts, gesturing to the walls around you. The party thrums outside your bubble of blood and schemes. "This is the possibly the most important file in all of the Empire and it's sitting out in the open like this."

"Yeah, it's a bit suspicious, I guess."

Aradia nods. "But, you know this hive is outfitted with security cameras, and the Ringleader's private study and ablution chambers are not."

You nod your head beginning to pound. "And this means we aren't about to be blown up with machine guns, right?"

Aradia smiles, her dimples popping into existence. "Yes, this is where all of the slaving data is held, and security cameras are more of a security risk than they are beneficial because the information in this room is the only copy _anywhere_."

"Why are you telling me this."

"Be_cause_, Vriska! We were filmed going into this room and we can't leave with you like this or with the file!" Aradia's bouncing up and down now, her jubilation reverberating off the walls and soaking into the carpet.

You stare at her, your brows knitting together in exasperation and worry for her mental well-being. "Aradia did you fall down a flight of stairs and hit your head? Chip a horn? Are you alright?"

"I'm better than alright! This is fan-_tastic!"_ Aradia exclaims, holding the file above her head as if to sacrifice it to some sun god.

Nepeta's still shooting questions through the Stratega. "Do you think you could have saved her?"

You are lost, your temples pulsing with pain. "I don't think I follow."

"We have a cover! You are on tape entering in here with the Stratega, most likely to pail. Now, after Nepeta and I arrived, we gained the same cover, albeit with a much more... depraved undertone. We just need to find a way to get out of here without tripping anything and we can be gone and burried.!" Aradia opens the file and shows you the detailed plans on how to find the rebellion pockets, what to do with the trolls when you find them, the what to do when their leaders are encountered.

"So you're saying the presence of cameras and lack thereof is a good thing. And this file," you say, closing and pointing to it, "is going to be our ticket to finding the main body of the resistance, and being accepted because we probably stopped the incursion that would destroy them?"

Aradia nods, her blue lips stretching in a fashion similar to your own.

"This is too good to be true," you say, and it is. Why the fuck would this just be sitting around in the open on top of a _desk._

"Look here, at the Ringleader's signature," Aradia explains, pointing with her gloves hands. "It's dated tonight, she was probably checking it again and adding to it and didn't put it away for the party. She was most likely going to talk about this in the meeting she'll host once the party is over."

You nod in acceptance of this ration train of thought.

You ask Nepeta to come over and you and Aradia explain the plan to her. She nods grimly and glances over at the Stratega.

"Should we take him," she asks, her hand waving at him. His face looks like it was chewed off and glued back on.

You consider the lump of shit on the floor before you shake your head. "If we take him with us, it'll just be a bigger hassle than it's worth."

"Well, we could give him to someone," Aradia suggests, also considering the lump of shit.

"Nah, just leave him here, he'll probably be killed for some batshit law to the Empire he broke. And because he got the shit beat out of him by a girl with one arm," you state, a vicious grin breaking on your face. You give a short laugh at your own cruelty and wit, then remember Nepeta is standing with you. You sober yourself.

Aradia shrugs. "Alright, now we could probably use one of the windows to get out, I doubt they're rigged to go off. The floor plans I acquired did not indicate that there would be alarms running through these walls."

You just want to go to hive. "Alright, let's bust a sucker," you say, picking up your arm and giong over to a window.

"Vriska, we can just open it with its handle!" Nepeta exclaims when she sees you're about to bash the safety glass.

You stop to consider the possible consequences of your actions and decide that Nepeta's idea is better than your own. You shrug and then remember something that might buy you even more time. "Alright, you two handle that, I'll go have a word with the brinesucker."

They stare at you before you wave your detached arm at them to get going. You go to the Stratega an take the key he used on the room and thank him for his services. He doesn't even look mad, just resigned and beaten. Well, emotionally beaten that is. He was physically beaten prior to the look you had just taken.

You lock the door to the room and take the key with yourself. As a trophy, you tell yourself. You want something to remember this night.

Aradia and Nepeta wrestle on of the windows open and you are blessedly only a few feet from the ground. The three of you peel off your heels and make a break for the ground and don't stop running until you get to Nepeta's forest.

888

Once you get to the hive you tell Equius to get his shit together and close up shop, you've got places to go and people to see. And you'll probably be found by the next night, so you've got little time to waste.

Aradia is loathe to part with all of her shit, but you convince her that leaving them behind will enable you to move faster and she really doesn't need all of the paper anymore. The three of you had made sure to transport all of the important files to a flash drive that Aradia currently has inside of a suitcase along with the relic music box Nepeta gave her.

Equius spends the majority of the time it takes the rest of you to pack to fix your arm. He cleans the blood from it and fixes the bolts and gears and rings that came loose when you were handing the Stragets his ass.

In two hours, you are all ready to go, mostly clothes and money packed away inside of six suitcases, Equius holding three. Aradia is carrying her lusus so the hopping little menace doesn't get in the way and Nepeta has her bag, and you, yours.

You leave your dresses at the scene and Nepeta helps you get out of your soiled dress and into a new one. Your face is flaming through the whole ordeal her fingers hot on your shoulders, arm, lower and upper back. You want to keep her there and run away at the same time. The shame at being nearly naked in front of her is mixed with the urge to feel self-satisfied that you think you catch her sneaking glimpses of your body.

Equius attaches your arm before you leave and away the four of you go out of the forest and to the Imperial City.

The city is big. Numerous manholes and storm grates line the streets. The four of you take a back alley and Equius moves the cover of the hole aside to allow you passage into the bowels of the city.

The inside is dank and dark and wonderful, everything you've ever read about and glimpsed for an underground syndicate.

You and Aradia decipher the notes and maps and procedures laid out for you in the top secret file, maneuvering the winding, slippery stone and metal pathways. You eventually hit a place where the file directs you the brick wall to your right. You feel along the wall for almost two hours, searching for something push, pull, punch, puncture.

Aradia's lusus even tries to help by butting her head into the wall at random places.

Nepeta, however, becomes extremely fed up and asks Equius to punch through the wall, which he kindly does at the request of his pint-sized moirail.

And there's even more tunnel to navigate and you are getting more and angry and tired and why can't you just be there already you have been walking and searching and groping for hours-

The thought it cut short as a hard, unforgiving object launches itself at your skull. You hit the ground and you remember when you first met Nepeta and how she almost killed you and _finally found the base!_

888

When you come to, you and Aradia are tied to each other. You struggle for a bit before Aradia tells you to stop moving, you'll just break your fucking arm again.

"Well why did I get tied to you. And where's Nepeta?" you ask, your panic mounting. You struggle even harder than before.

"I said stop struggling! They're fine, they volunteered to bring the file we brought before their leaders and if they decide that we came here with a good reason and that we saved all of their lives then they're spare ours"

You stop and calm down, your head throbbing. The two of you wait in silence until you can't handle it.

"Where's your lusus?" you ask, wanting something to take away from the silence.

"Nepeta has her."

Oh. "Makes sense. Why isn't anyone guarding us?" you ask, actually concerned at how this operation is being run.

You feel Aradia's horn knock your own as she attempts to turn her head. "I'm watching him as we speak."

"Oh. What does he look like?"

"Nothing much, he's a brownblood I think. Small horns. A few scars. Not very tall."

You chuckle, the normality of the conversation putting you at ease. "Good to know."

The two of you go back and forth like that until a large green troll comes over and cuts the two of you loose. He escorts you into a large cavernous room where there are many warm bodies bustling about.

You are directed towards a table near the far right of the opening where about six or seven trolls are gathered.

The first person you see is Nepeta and you walk just a bit faster to get to her.

Once you get there, the second person you see makes all of the blood drain from your face. It makes your stomach fall out, it makes your ears fill with water, it makes your knees into some sort of limp noodle-like wheat product.

"Hey, Vriska," Tavros says from his wheelchair, the pants he's wearing pinned and folded under his body so his leg stumps don't get cold.

"H-hey," you reply weakly.

Nepeta hugs you around your middle and you return it, your eyes still on Tavros.

He smiles and says you can talk later, right now there's business to discuss.

You nod, speechless for once.

A small, stout troll with fire eyes and nubby horns opens up the conversation with a hearty shout filled with numerous curses. "Alright, now what the ever-loving fuck happened? The four of you show up at our door with a file detailing our doom and expect us to just welcome you with open arms!?"

"I'd like to point out," Aradia says, cheery as ever, "that you were the ones that knocked us and bound me to _her._"

You tell Aradia to go fuck her self.

Sir Nubs tells you to go fuck yourself.

A large, angry seadweller with no horns at all tells you to go fuck yourselves.

Equius says we all need to calm down and observe that coarse language may not suit us all that well.

Everyone at the table tells Equius to shut the fuck up.

888

You learn that this chunk, the main branch of the underground, is run by two trolls. One is an irate greenblood named Absolm. The other is an extremely irate seadweller named Laddas.

Your bad, Absolm's exact words were _yellow_-green. Apparently these dipshits and all dipshits before them have something good going with the Jades' tending to the mothergrub. The Virgos bring up lost and extra grubs to be held and raised and bred for troops and brighter tomorrow.

Absolm is apparently pretty damn fucking special as him and quite a few others are the only limes to make it out of the breeding caverns because of how much your Empire loves to kill kids. Laddas is an exiled seadweller, ear and horns chopped off for treason to the Empire.

Sir Nubs apparently has a name! Karkat Vantas, a mutant and rebel with a cause was found after exiting the caverns and yadda yadda yadda, and now outshouts anyone in his path. That path has apparently been set for him and his lusus as the two of them are shacked up in the sewers, living the highlife with all the 'lowblood scum.'

But enough about them, Tavros is the first person you go to after you, Aradia, Nepeta and Equius are directed to the barracks. Equius is dragged to the weapons or the medical or the robots bay, you stone cold do not give a fuck about him. Nepeta stays with Aradia and her lusus and you are loathe to leave her but your curiosity gets the best of you and you go to where Tavros said his block was.

You knock on his door and he tells you to come in, the door's open.

You walk in and his block is cold and gray with a few stacks of belongings. He's rolled over to his desk, writing something but stops once you enter.

You clear your throat and he chuckles at you.

"Hey, Vriska, take a seat," he says kindly, gesturing to the pallette piled with cushions next to his recuperacoon.

You move over and sit, the soft material fresh and low to the ground. He wheels over and pushes himself on top of it, sitting next to you.

You cough, awkward and not knowing what to say even after sweeps of practice. So he starts instead.

"Never thought I'd see you again," he says, scratching the back of his head. His Mohawk is long and ruffled as usual.

_Was_ usual.

"Same," you reply woodenly.

He looks around for a moment before asking you what you've been up to. You can't take it, suddenly, everything that's happened tonight or last night or five nights ago just pushes over you and spills out of your mouth. You tell him everything that's happened over since you botched feeding him to your lusus to leaving him at his hive to die to trying to kill Sollux to working with Aradia to your career as a theif to getting killed by Nepeta and saved by Nepeta.

You tell him about the Stratega and the file and your arm and Nepeta

You sob through it all but you break down completely when you get to Nepeta. Your frame shakes with sobs you don't know why you're having and you just cry into his shirt. He lets you do it, holding you and rubbing your back until the tears squeeze themselves out.

You calm down after a bit and just there awkwardly, a disgusting show of latent pale affections and confused red emotions. You fall back onto the cushions and drag him with you, his stumps flailing in the air. You wrap your arms around him, when did his chest get so goddamn _big_.

He just holds you while you talk into his side.

"I just, I don't know what to do, but I don't know why I'm telling you this. I've just seen you for the first time in four sweeps and I've lost control of my life and I'm telling you about how I fell in love with a cat in a matter of a perigee." You press your face harder into the Tavros you don't recognize but feel safe with. "I'm more pathetic than you are, god_dammit._"

Tavros doesn't say anything, just rubs your back. You lay there in silence for a few minutes before you want to know why he's here what happened, you're sorry about his legs.

He sighs and then chuckles, the low sound reverberating through his barrel chest. "After you, uh, _ripped off my legs_, I got picked up by a nice guy. Kinda crazy, but pretty nice. He took me and Tinkerbull and he fixed me up pretty well. We got caught in a rebellion raid, because he's apparently a part of it, and were being transported somewhere so we could be publicly executed when us a few others were saved by his friends."

You prop yourself up on your elbows to look him in the eyes. They're brown now.

"That's it?" you ask, incredulous. There's no way that's all that happened. That sounded like the back blurb of a book. A book containing two major fight scenes, a rallying tale of friendship and a coming of age story.

He pushes himself up to meet you. "Well I don't think they would have bothered to save me if he hadn't been friends with me by then. In fact, I may have just been a liability." He looks down to the side, the think lashes around his eyes fanning across his cheekbones. "I probably still am."

You grin and lean in to give him a peck on the cheek. "Yeah, you probably are."

He quirks his mouth and looks at you sideways, already so done with your shit. "And you think Nepeta doesn't have any red feelings for you?"

Your face falls and you rest your chin on his chest. "No, I'm terrible."

"You got that right."

You glare at him but quickly begin to smile at how easily you fall into this playfulness with him. "She's too good for me."

He raises a hand to your hair, giving you a soft pet. He looks at you softly, his eyes brown and when did they turn brown, you wonder. "She probably is."

You push his hand off your head with your metal one. "Okay, fuck you."

He grabs your steel appendage and lightly taps the wrist. "Where'd you get this?"

That's right, Tavros has no legs. "I got them from the sweaty blue troll I came in with. Equius, I think I mentioned him when I was staining your shirt."

He nods, his head falling back onto the pile of cushions. You stare at him, his large horns, nose, ears, eyes, mouth, everything on him oversized. He's grown out of the small, withered, nervous wiggler you'd known since you were three into something big, larger than life.

You pap his face with your right hand. "You've changed a lot."

He pushes his hand into your face, doing an awkward pap combined with an attempt to shove you. "So did you. You finally learned how to love."

You laugh and he laughs with you, the whole scene just completely wonderful. You feel safe with him, not tired, you're comfortable. You laugh with him and he laughs with you and it's like when you were younger but it's _better_. You know he's forgiven you and he knows you're sorry now.

"You fill any quadrants yet, Pupa?" you ask after a bit, the two of you laying together, curled around each as other as much as his horns will permit.

"Not yet," he says into your hair, his lips pressing into your scalp.

You aren't one to mince words. "Remember when we were younger and I met you at one of those shitty parties that fits trolls together for moiralligence?"

He nods.

"Remember when we tried to be pale together but I guess we were just too young for that and then my mom tried to kill you?"

"It that really possible to forget?"

"Shut up, I'm asking if you want to be pale with me."

He's quiet for a moment before softly kissing your head. "Sure, why not."

"Are you just saying that because you're afraid I'll hurt you if you don't?"

"No. I-I think that when we were younger I would have, but not now. You're different Vriska, you're crying for anguish instead of laughter."

"I was bemoaning my lack of matespritship."

"You were bemoaning that someone was so good you felt like you needed to be good too. You were crying because you know you're a selfish bitch."

"I've been in here for such a short time and you're acting like you know everything about me."

"You're a very open person, Vriska Serket."

You feel like a kid again, asking someone if they liked you _that way_ and it feels great. You feel completely at ease with the boy whose legs you took and despite the sweeps between you two, you still want to be with each other.

You stay in his room for the day, sleeping in the recuperacoon with him. You wake up before him the next evening and decide to go find Nepeta to talk to her.

You get out of the slime, yanking yourself from the suctioning gel and into the cool air and push clothes onto your body. Down the hall and into the barracks you find Nepeta comfortably inside of a small recuperacoon. The recuperacoon next to her houses Equius, looking cramped and too large for the small, gel-filled shell.

You tap on the side of Nepeta's recuperacoon and she stirs, her eyes opening to slits to look up at your face. You reach into the gel and hug her, pulling her out with a thick sucking squelch.

"Vriskers!" she whisper-shouts, her hands reaching up to grab your horns.

"I didn't tell you why I beat the Stratega so badly," you say, your face buried in her sticky neck.

She doesn't say anything, most likely curious as to what you are about to do. So you tell her what he said and how you couldn't handle hurting her like that so you had to hurt _him._ You tell her about how you needed her to be safe and you'd rather sell yourself than sell her.

You finish and she gently pushes your face off of her. "Vriska," she says slowly, her hands on both sides of your face. "I, just, I well-" she tries to say and you just know you're about to be rejected.

"Nepeta, please don't say you hate me," you say, your eye closing.

"I don't! The opposite, the opposite of hate! I really do like you Vriska but, it's just been such a short time and I-" she takes a deep breath and your pusher is collapsing in on itself. You open your eye. "You love with such intensity and fall in and out of love easily and I can't do that."

She looks at you and you can't help it, you lean in to kiss her. You don't attack her face, try to chew anything off or suck or anything. You place a simple peck to her lips and she flinches back before pressing her lips back.

You want to crush your face to her and a small whine escapes your throat, but you hold yourself back. You can't stand it, she likes you back and even though she's not as deeply head over heels are you are, it's okay because she _feels_ for you.

It's too much for you to take and tell Nepeta you have to go talk to Tavros. She doesn't say anything, but she presses her lips quickly to your cheek and you run the fuck out of there. You run into the main cistern and nearly run over a small seatroll.

When you get a glimpse of who she is, your eye is physically pushed back into your skull. You look to her right and nearby is a tall, muscular seatroll with thick glasses and a purple albino patch in his hair. His crooked horns make waves in his hair and he scowls at you for running her over.

The girl seems unperturbed though and just extends a hand to you, friendly and encouraging. She speaks, her voice clear and sweet and thick with the seadweller accent, "Feferi Peixes, abdicated Empress-to-be!"

**A/N**

**Welp, that was fun. This is the end of Vriska's POV and the next story will most likely be called "Buying Truths and Selling Lies."**

**I also wish to remind you that I made some pretty rockin' pictures for this one. They're on Ao3, please go check them out!**

**I also have a playlist I made for Eight Legs, and I could post it on the blog if anyone wants.**


End file.
